Topeka ? Gov.-elect Kathleen Sebelius’ closed-door review of state government continued Wednesday in the face of a media lawsuit challenging the secret task force meetings.

Fourteen news organizations, including the Lawrence Journal-World, filed suit in Shawnee County District Court seeking an order to force Sebelius to make public notification of the meetings and to open them to the public.

Despite the fact the meetings are being conducted on public property, are financed by taxpayer dollars and will make recommendations to Sebelius on the state budget, she has maintained that Kansas law allows them to remain closed.

“We strongly believe, with the support of the Attorney General’s Office, that we are following the law,” Sebelius said in a prepared statement.

The lawsuit alleges that meetings of the task forces, which Sebelius calls the Budget Efficiency Savings Team, should be open to the public under the Kansas Open Meetings Act. The suit alleges that because Sebelius has a taxpayer-funded transition office and many of the legal rights and privileges of being governor, “she is the functional equivalent of the governor for the purposes of this statute.”

The team also can be defined by Kansas law as a “task force” or “advisory committee” created by executive order of the governor, the lawsuit said, so its meetings must be conducted in accordance with the act.

The Attorney General’s Office has said the teams, named last month, would not be governed by the act until Sebelius was sworn in as governor Jan. 13.

Shawnee County District Judge Eric Rosen has scheduled a hearing on the issue Dec. 12.

Nicole Corcoran-Basso, a spokeswoman for Sebelius, said two of the task force groups met Wednesday and that more meetings were scheduled.

Sebelius has said the teams would conduct public hearings, but that she wanted to keep the meetings closed so task force members could have frank discussions about how to save money and provide better services. The meetings are the result of Sebelius’ campaign promise to conduct a top-to-bottom review of state government. The review is designed to make agencies more efficient.

Asked about the issue at a news conference, the current governor, Bill Graves, said he didn’t want to get involved in the fight. He added that sometimes open meetings “can stifle some of that discussion.”

Two years ago, policy task forces appointed by Graves closed their meetings to the media while deliberating on recommendations.

Ed Flentje, director of the Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs at Wichita State University, said he thought Sebelius had the right to appoint task forces to deliberate in secret. He said whatever the task forces recommended would have to be approved by Sebelius before the recommendations went any further.

“The governor is basically the recommender, and whatever the governor recommends, and certainly within the issue of savings and the budget, is then going to be subjected to all sorts of review. So the process, I don’t think is shortchanged,” Flentje said.

The closed meetings, however, prompted one task force chairman to quit. State Sen. David Adkins, R-Leawood, had been appointed by Sebelius, a Democrat, to examine public safety spending.

Adkins said the state’s budget problems were so great that the hearings should be opened to the public to ensure all ideas were being heard. Still, Adkins said that under the state open meetings law, Sebelius was legally within her rights to have closed-door meetings until she becomes governor.

Editors of the 11 newspapers, the statewide wire service and officers of the two professional associations that filed the suit said that even if the closed meetings followed the letter of the law, they don’t honor its intent.

“All Kansans have a right to know about their government,” said Paul Stevens, Associated Press bureau chief for Kansas and Missouri. “Public officials must not hide the public’s business behind a veil of secrecy.”

The lawsuit was filed after negotiations Tuesday with Sebelius’ staff.