Recently in Pennsylvania open records Category

In case you were curious, we checked on outgoing District Attorney Stan Rebert's campaign money. (To give credit where it's due, this was actually managing editor Randy Parker's idea -- just to see how or if Rebert would spend whatever money he had left after losing the primary to Tom Kearney. For example, could or would this powerful figure in county Republican politics donate to other campaigns?).

The headline would be that, as you might expect, Rebert spent almost all his money in the primary. Here are the details, thanks to reporter Teresa Ann Boeckel, who paged through the paperwork:

Rebert's committee had $31,179.03 available between May 5 and June 8, and spent $29,437.07, leaving a cash balance of $1,741.96. Much of that was spent on advertising during the primary.

Between June 9 and Oct. 19, the current reporting period, his committee received $737.66 in contributions and spent $730.36 on party expenses, repayment of a candidate loan and a stop-payment fee. That leaves a balance of $1,748.76.

Anything else you want to know? Leave a comment here, or e-mail me at sblanchard at ydr.com.

The York Daily Record/Sunday News' public records reporting efforts -- including our Full Disclosure web site and this blog -- won the 2009 Public Service Award from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, which was announced today.

On its Web site, PNA says, "Continuing the tradition of the news media as the "fourth estate," the Public Service Award is presented to the newspaper that has helped improve the community through public service leadership."

The contest judge, a retired longtime publisher of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, wrote of his decision to honor the YDR's public records efforts:

 "More than anything else there was a single factor or approach that drove the decision. That, simply, was the localization of the issue, telling the needs of York County citizens for open records.
 
 "I believe all PNA newspapers have devoted a lot of time to the issue but the York Daily Record really brought it home -- right to the kitchen table level."

 You can click on the Full Disclosure link above to see the range of information on the site, including stories, original documents and links that can help you do your own research.

 The judge also recognized YDR reporter Melissa Nann Burke for her investigative series on Angel Food Ministries, a food nonprofit that paid its founding family more than $2 million in 2006. The judge gave the PNA's G. Richard Dew Award, the state's most prestigious journalism award, to another YDR entry, then went on to say:

"But I must say something about the incredible reporting job accomplished by Melissa Nann Burke." Her effort, the judge wrote, "was in the best traditions of our business. ... The digging she did to unearth the facts was nothing short of admirable."

A Lebanon County woman who drew national attention last year for carrying a loaded handgun to her child's soccer game was shot dead Wednesday in what police are calling a murder suicide.

Each year the state police put out a report on firearm trends in the state.

Here's some local info:

Handgun sales

• In York County, where about 420,000 people live, there were more than 17,000 guns sold in 2008. About 45 percent were handguns.
• In Lebanon County, which has about 128,934 residents, there were about 9,100 guns sold, with about 47 percent being handguns.

License to carry

• York County had 5,777 of these permits issued in 2008. As a percent of the county's total population, about 1.4 percent got one of these permits that year.
• Lebanon County had 1,651. That's about 1.3 percent of the population.

(Photo credit: Meleanie Hain sports a holstered Glock at her daughter's soccer practice in September 2008. Lebanon Daily News)

In my story yesterday about a settlement payment to a former director of the York County School of Technology, I had to use an estimate for his payout.

The settlement, which came Wednesday via a Right-to-Know request, showed up on my desk around 3:30 p.m. The contract didn't spell out his salary, and my last record was from 2005-2006.

Today, in response to another Right-to-Know request, I got the updated salary from the state's pension board for educators, the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System.

Former director James A. Kraft made $126,438.73 as of June 30. Under his settlement agreement he is due his weekly salary until March 31. That's $87,534. He's also getting health care. In return, he's agreed not to sue the district.

The state's Office of Open Records has told Carroll Township it must prove why plans for a proposed development should be kept from the public.

The township denied a request from Carroll Citizens for Sensible Growth for a traffic impact study, stormwater management plan and architectural design standards for the proposed Village at South Mountain, a housing/commercial development across from Logan Park, near the Route 74 intersection with Route 15. The township says the documents will be used in "predecisional deliberations" and invoked a right-to-know law exception.

CCSG appealed to the OOR, which wrote to the township Aug. 21 and noted that the new right-to-know law makes documents public unless an agency can prove they should be private. "Kindly explain any and all factual and legal basis for withholding these records under the 'internal predecisional deliberation' exception," the open records office wrote.

The township has until Monday to respond. After that, the OOR will rule on the appeal.

The denial, appeal and OOR's letter are all here.

A recent story in the Dillsburg Banner quoted Carroll Township manager Dianne Price as saying that the township didn't want to keep the plan's details from the public, but agreed to it as part of the settlement of an ongoing conflict about the proposed development.

The group Project on Government Oversight* says New Hampshire is the best of the 50 states at posting federal stimulus information on the state web site, mainly because New Hampshire is posting scanned copies of the actual contracts involved.

The groups says Pennsylvania does not list specific stimulus contract information, nor does it post copies of contracts on the state web site. Very few states do, according to the group's research.

We blogged here about some of the things you can find on Pennsylvania's state contract web site, and you can see what, to me, could be characterized as a copy of a contract. Then again, I've never worked for the state or for a company that contracts with the state, so maybe the document I'm looking at is something else.

The POGO group did say that it compiled its information "based on whether a taxpayer with basic web navigation skills and a basic understanding of (the stimulus act) can easily access (stimulus-act)-supported state contracts." It's possible they didn't find Pennsylvania's state contract site.

*I had the name of the group wrong in the original version of this post.

Looking up tax revenue records can reveal some pretty interesting things. Reporter Nickie Dobo has a story in today's paper looking at how school district taxes have risen over the years, and how taxpayers who are already battling a tough economy are getting pinched by the growing tax bills.

As part of reporting that story, she checked in with the county's recorder of deeds and discovered something about the real estate crash that I don't think we'd written before: Revenue from real estate transfer taxes has basically fallen off a cliff for most school districts. (Every time a home is sold, the school district gets a small percentage of the price.)

The transfer tax only amounts to about 1 percent of school districts' budgets. But still, it's a few hundred thousand dollars they need to replace -- and a few hundred thousand is, well, a few hundred thousand.

This story is also the first time, at least in a while, that we've looked at property tax numbers over time. (Usually we do an annual story rounding up taxes and comparing the previous year to the current year). We're working on putting together a searchable spreadsheet of all of the numbers we used in today's story; check back here this week and we'll let you know when it's up.

Check out the story. We think it's a pretty good look at taxes over time, but there's no way we can cover every school-tax-related angle in one story ... so let us know if there's something you want us to look at and we'll give it a shot.

If you scroll down the page and look to the right side, you'll come across a new feature on Record Tracker: A blogroll of blogs we read and recommend.

We'll add to the list soon. Meanwhile, if you know of any good open-records and right-to-know blogs out there, send us a link either in the comments to this post or to sblanchard@ydr.com.

I wanted to pass along a couple of sites that look good if you're interested in open records, politics and other state business.

 One is School Board Transparency, run by Fred Baldwin, a self-described "recovering school board president" from the Carlisle district.

He started the blog, he says, to focus on transparency in school board-union negotiations. But he touches on other school-related issues too. There's a lot of good stuff on there, including an honor roll of districts that post good financial info on their web sites. He linked to Record Tracker recently, and I'm glad he did, because now I have his blog in my Google reader. 

And I have to say, I love this quote from his explanation about why he's doing the blog:

" 'Transparency' is not just a tactic, and it's more than compliance with 'open records' laws.   Most of us understand it as an ethical imperative for public officials."

 Amen.

 Another interesting site is BlogNetNews for Pennsylvania, which looks like a compilation of blog posts on political issues from around the state. Seems like a great place to keep up with what people are doing and saying around the Commonwealth when it comes to politics and state business.You can also put BNN in your Google reader or other newsfeed.

And while I'm talking about following blogs in readers, you can follow this blog too -- scroll down and look on the right-hand side for the little orange icon with the words "Subscribe to this blog's feed." If you have a Google reader or other newsfeed set up, just click on the hyperlink and Record Tracker posts will be delivered to you automatically.

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.