Recently in appeal Category

I just read reporter Nickie Dobo's story about a York County resident who asked to see a copy of the working budget for South Eastern School District.

No, the district said, we won't give you that. It's only a draft, and it would be a "disservice to the to the community and to the district" to release it.

A disservice to the community? How exactly? I'm thinking the whole point of a resident wanting to see a working budget is to see how the district is creating its budget, and that it's not all that helpful to only be able to see the finished product.

Anyway, you see that kind of reasoning sometimes when agencies deny records -- what amounts to an agency telling a person that they can't handle the document they're requesting, or wouldn't understand it, or something similar. South Eastern's business manager, for example, said the public shouldn't see the document because "it's not accurate."

I assume that by "accurate" she meant "final." But even if she meant that there were mistakes in the draft budget, again, what harm can come from  this kind of public oversight?  There seems to be an assumption that the requester, upon being told that it is a draft budget subject to change, would not understand and would assume the budget was final.

I'd love to have a discussion here on why it seems that some agencies believe people can't be trusted to look at what their government is doing.

 The state's Office of Open Records granted the requester's appeal in this case. The district is considering whether to appeal. This is one to watch.

In a final determination issued June 22, the state Office of Open Records granted access to details of proposed budgets for school districts.

According to the final determination:

Pat Barget, of the South Eastern Tax Reform Coalition, requested a "copy of the itemized budget, with line by line description" from the South Eastern School District on May 4.

On May 12 the district denied the requests, saying it was a draft document that's not a public record.

The district's argument did not convince the open records office. In fact, the office used the district's denial wording against them. The the denial district called it a "proposed expenditure budget," a specific document that is considered public by the state Department of Education.

South Eastern has one of the most active taxpayer groups in York County. They are a constant presence at school board meetings, and actively take part in public meetings by asking questions and requesting information.

A member of that group alerted the York Daily Record in June 2008 to the proposed purchase of a nearly $100,000 grand piano by the district. After our paper reported on the issue the district backed away, as many taxpayers objected to the district buying a Steinway & Sons Model D concert grand piano, which is one of the finest (and most expensive) pianos in the world. 

You might recall that we were waiting to hear from the county for its next move on 911 time response logs (see previous blog entry).

Well, county solicitor Michael Flannelly said today the county will be appealing the open records' office decision on our appeal.

In a recent ruling the state Office of Open records, a local tax agency agency was required to turn over job applications and resumes of its workers.

The back story on this is interesting. The Scranton Single Tax Office "lost" $2 million. An audit also found that the agency -- which exists solely to distribute taxes to local agencies -- had "accumulated" another $12 million. The office is being investigated.

As you can imagine, there's been some questions about the people running the show there. (I know, the video is a couple years old, but it is a real hoot.)

It's important for the community to look at those job applications and resumes to watchdog the employees -- especially in a place like Scranton and nearby Wilkes-Barre, where nepotism is almost a way of life.

(Interesting local side note: The reporter who filed this Right-to-Know appeal is Charles Schillinger, a former York Dispatch reporter. He now works for the Scranton Times-Tribune.)

Iowa's governor says he'll release e-mails he sent from, or received on, private computers and servers that dealt with public business. He's responding to an open records request by The Associated Press.

York Township Commissioner Philip Briddell apparently has e-mails dealing with public business that are on a private server. The state's open records office ruled they are open to public inspection, but that it has no power to force Briddell or his employer to produce the e-mails.

That leaves it up to Briddell to release the e-mails. His initial response: It's not my problem.

It's fascinating (and encouraging) to see Pennsylvania residents using the new right-to-know law and trying to make it work for them.

Demetra Stamus of Carbon County tried something interesting when she appealed the county's denial of 911 audiotapes and other records related to a car crash in which her brother died.

As part of her appeal, she noted that the right-to-know law indicates that agencies can (my emphasis) release information that falls under an exemption if they believe the public interest in the material "outweighs the interest in non-disclosure."

She argued that sets up a mandatory test by an agency, as opposed to simply opening the door for an agency to release information that's exempt from the RTK law. And, she said, Carbon County didn't do the test.

She lost; the open records office "does not find this argument persuasive," it wrote in denying her appeal on May 1. It continued, "The OOR cannot compel the county to undertake a discretionary exercise."

So, agencies can apply that test, but they don't have to (my emphasis again). It's tough to argue that agencies should be mandated to do the test every time they issue a denial; but it also is hard to fathom that any agency would voluntarily give up information that it didn't have to (they seem to work hard enough as it is to try to keep public information private).

You would like to think, however, that if the public benefit outweighed the need to keep information private, an agency would release the information. Guess we'll have to just wait and see.

 A man named Keith Knauss of Kennett Square filed a right-to-know request asking Unionville-Chadds Ford School District for access to its master schedule for students, teachers and classrooms, with unique identifiers in place of student names.

 The district denied him, the office of open records granted his appeal, and the district has taken it to Chester County Common Pleas Court.

 In its filing, the district makes some rational points as to why it shouldn't have to release the schedule. This, however, does not seem to be one of them:

 "Ms. Parker and Mr. Hug -- both experts in their fields -- are of the opinion that disclosure of the Schedule to the public would be reasonably likely to result in a substantial and demonstrable risk of physical harm to or the personal security of an individual; thus, the Schedule is exempt from public access under the RTKL."
 The Schedule, it says, would reveal when large numbers of students were gathered, and "A person seeking to harm as many students as possible would be aided by such information."

 Seriously? That appears to say that there is an existing death threat to the students and/or faculty at district schools, and that to release the schedule would allow someone to carry out mass murder. (Note the language "substantial and demonstrable risk of physical harm.")

 I suspect if that were true, we'd all know about it, because the school would have had to have taken safety precautions well before someone requested access to the school schedule. Not to mention that it wouldn't take access to a schedule for someone to figure out when schoolkids would be at lunch.

 But maybe it's a sign of the times. Maybe all school districts operate under constant fear that there is someone waiting to do their students harm. If so, that's sad. And it doesn't seem to be a necessary argument in this case, given the district's other stated reasons why the schedule shouldn't be public.

 Your thoughts?

Daily Record/Sunday News staffer Ted Czech reports in today's paper that although the state's new open records law (read it here) makes it possible for residents to get 911 time-response logs -- and thus assess the performance of their emergency responders -- York County's definition of a time-response log makes it impossible to do that.

 The county decided it would not include addresses, or even geographical locations, in its time-response logs. (We've appealed the county's decision to the state's open records office.)

 Czech's discovery of that fact, and the response to it, has prompted some fascinating reaction from county officials, others quoted in the story and people who have read his story:

 1. A reader commented that perhaps the county won't release the addresses over concern for patient privacy, cites the Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act, and suggests we invest in a scanner if we want to know the addresses.
   
    First, we have scanners (as do many others in York County). But you can't compile a database from listening to scanner calls that would allow you to assess response times over a particular geographic area, or during a particular time frame, etc. The county does, as part of its function, and residents have a right to that information.

Another win for open records advocates came from the Office of Open Records this week.

The office ruled that volunteer fire companies are public agencies subject to the state's new open records act.

The case came from a Morris Township, Tioga County, appeal. The township tried to argue that the records sought were not open because the volunteer fire company was a nonprofit agency that is not a state agency.

The office of open records rejected this argument, pointing to a new provision in the law that says those that perform an essential governmental function are subject to the open records act.

York Township supervisors will no longer be able to e-mail each other with impunity.

The state Office of Open Records ordered the township to archive all supervisors' e-mail after a resident's request for e-mails had to be turned down because it was not in the possession of the township.

Previously, all e-mail was pinged to a private e-mail address, including a business address that the state has no control over. The resident wanted the e-mail because he believed there was some improper correspondence.