The Sampson County Board of Commissioners get the benefit of the doubt on holding a public hearing on the proposed 2009-10 budget the same night as three county high school graduations.

But they should right the oversight by holding another before the June 29 date set aside to adopt the fiscal plan.

Last Thursday night — at the same time Union, Lakewood and Hobbton were holding graduation exercises — commissioners gaveled to order a public hearing on the budget, which calls for no tax increase and a less-than-promised increase in the educational budget.

No one was present at the hearing except commissioners, county staff and one solitary employee of the Department of Social Services, who did not ask to speak.

We applaud commissioner John Blanton for questioning the sensibility of holding the public hearing on a night when so many graduations were being held, and we concur with this thought that some educators — and perhaps even parents — might have shown up to discuss the board’s decision to reduce school funding from 7 percent to 3 percent, likely eliminating plans to reopen the old Union High School as initially planned.

“This concerns me. Graduation takes place tonight (Thursday), and nobody is here,” Blanton told his colleagues.

County manager Rick Moorefield said he didn’t think anyone knew that it was graduation night when the public hearing was scheduled, and he further implied that had they known, the hearing likely would have been scheduled on a different night.

Perhaps they didn’t know about the graduation and perhaps, if they had, a different day would have been selected.

It wasn’t, and the public hearing went on, sans the public.

While it’s true that we weren’t expecting many folks to come complaining about a budget with no tax increase, we have little doubt county educators might have made an impassioned plea for the funding they had been promised.

And because they couldn’t, county commissioners should step up and offer another public hearing.

It’s possible no one will show, but that, really, isn’t the point. What is, quite simply, is the fact that commissioners would be showing a good faith attempt to give everyone an opportunity to voice any concerns they might have. It would, in our estimation, go above and beyond the call of duty and prove that commissioners really do care about what the public they serve has to say.

The board has a chance to show its willingness to listen and its willingness to take a stand for the public. Whether they will or not remains to be seen.