From the Idaho Statesman

By Audrey Dutton

The Idaho Statesman sent a letter Friday to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, warning that the newspaper plans to sue if the department does not provide records about coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

The Statesman on May 21 filed a public record request for the names of long-term care facilities in Idaho with confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19 among their residents/patients or staff. At the time, there had been at least 22 long-term care facilities in Idaho with coronavirus infections among staff and residents, resulting in at least 273 cases and 44 deaths.

A growing number of states now publicly report not only which nursing homes, assisted living facilities and group homes have coronavirus cases, but the number of patients and staff who have been infected. Patients and residents of those facilities are especially vulnerable to the disease and make up a disproportionate share of the deaths in Idaho from COVID-19.

Nonetheless, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare denied the Statesman’s request, saying: “The Administrative Procedures Section (APS) received your request. The records custodian consulted with a Deputy Attorney General for the Department who determined your request is denied per IDAPA 16.02.10.070, 74-105(4)(b) and 74-106(12).”

Debora K. Grasham, an attorney at Givens Pursley in Boise, wrote to the department on behalf of the Statesman, saying the denial “fails to meet the requirements” of Idaho’s public records law.

She wrote that the information “is of paramount importance to the citizens of Idaho — particularly those with loved ones in such long term care facilities — as Idaho deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the widespread release and availability of such information is clearly in the public interest at this moment.”

Other states in the region, such as Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington publish detailed information about outbreaks in nursing homes and other settings.

Despite the refusal by Idaho officials to disclose information, the Statesman was able to confirm the names of 14 of the 22 facilities, through public record requests to local public health agencies, available public records, statements from facility owners and interviews. They included seven facilities in Ada County, two in Jerome County, two in Nez Perce County, two in Twin Falls County and one in Blaine County.

View letter to DHW

From the Idaho Statesman

From Idaho Education News

By Kevin Richert

A local teachers’ union says the Middleton School Board violated open meetings law with a closed-door discussion of labor negotiations.

Trustees plan to correct the error next week, Middleton district spokeswoman Vickie Holbrook said Friday.

The issue came to light Wednesday, when Middleton Education Association leaders filed a grievance with the board and district officials. “The Middleton School Board and Chairman Kirk Adams engaged in bad-faith practices by attempting to make unilateral decisions in a closed forum,” local union President Stephanie Boling and Vice President Dave Stacy said in their three-page complaint.

The grievance raises several concerns about a May 11 board meeting, and the trustees’ decision to discuss teacher contract renewals in a closed-door executive session.

• Union leaders accuse trustees of “voting on unknown discussions” in their closed meeting.
• Union leaders also say the May 11 meeting agenda made no reference of a closed-door discussion of teacher contracts.

Under state law, contract negotiations must take place in an open meeting, although public agencies can discuss contract offers in a closed meeting. But the state law forbids agencies from “taking any final action or making any final decision” in an executive session, and agencies must make a good-faith effort to list executive sessions on their meeting agenda.

Adams “was aware of the procedural error before the grievance was filed,” Holbrook said in an email Friday morning. She said the board will hold a special meeting early next week to address the error.

Districts across the state are beginning 2020-21 contract negotiations, facing a nonbinding July 1 deadline. Negotiations in Middleton are on hold, Holbrook said, as district officials determine how state budget cuts could affect the district.

From Idaho Education News

From the Idaho Statesman

State and local officials decide which details to publicly release about COVID-19 cases, and their response varies from state to state. 

Idaho’s government, for instance, has repeatedly declined to release geographic information about COVID-19 cases beyond the patient’s county of residence, while officials in other states have released the zip codes in which patients live.

Although private health information is protected at the federal level by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), that legislation is only the ground floor for medical privacy laws. States can enact more stringent laws and protect more information than HIPAA does, according to Stephanie Winer Schreiber, a corporate and health care attorney of the firm Buchanan, Ingersoll and Rooney, in Pittsburgh.

“HIPAA is the floor so to speak, so if a state has a more restrictive confidentiality law, HIPAA does not preempt them,” Wine Schreiber said.

HIPAA requires the weighing of 18 factors to determine if information is private health information, such as names, telephone numbers, medical record numbers, and health plan beneficiary numbers.

Only specific entities — called “covered entities” — are bound by HIPAA regulations, Wine Schreiber said. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has determined itself to be a covered entity, and is thus bound by those regulations.

Across the country, Wine Schreiber said, few states leave their medical privacy laws close to the bare minimum HIPAA requirements. State privacy law even tends to be hypersensitive to certain topics; she listed HIV, drug and alcohol abuse, and mental health as topics that often receive additional protections.

Idaho code 74-106-12 lists as exempt from public disclosure, “records of the department of health and welfare or a public health district that identify a person with a reportable disease.”

Idaho officials, for instance, have chosen not to name long-term care facilities where COVID-19 cases have been confirmed, although they have released information about the number of cases and facilities affected. Gov. Brad Little fielded a question about the topic during a press conference Thursday, when asked why the state has not identified a nursing home in Nez Perce County where multiple people have died from the disease. The county has the state’s highest rate of COVID-19 deaths.

“We are looking at what we’re going to do forward about what our policy is,” Little said.

On Friday, Health and Welfare spokeswoman Niki Forbing-Orr confirmed 32 COVID-19-related deaths had been associated with long-term care facilities. Another 19 deaths that were probably COVID-19-related were also associated with long-term care facilities.

The state was reporting 63 COVID-19 related deaths as of Friday afternoon.

Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen at Thursday’s press conference said, “Our policy is to not release addresses of where people live that have the virus, and that includes specific facilities, so I’m not able to share a specific facility.”

He added that any time one resident of a nursing home tests positive for COVID-19, family members of all residents are notified.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has stood by that approach — last month it would only confirm the number of long-term care facilities where cases were present, but would not identify them.

Yet on April 14, Central District Health sent a press release notifying the public of a fatal case of COVID-19 at Avamere Transitional Care and Rehab in Boise. There were 14 other cases connected to the facility, including both residents and staff members. City of Boise officials were not notified of the outbreak at the facility prior to the media reports about the death.

The final call on what information to share with the public rests with “individual response teams,” according to Brandon Atkins, program manager for Central District Health’s family and clinic services.

He said that while officials consider both HIPAA and Idaho’s law, “they are not the only determining factors in an epidemiological response.”

“While the statute and HIPAA regulations serve to protect individual identity, it is left to independent response teams at both a state and local level, to share certain pieces of information critical to response in an investigation scenario, based on independent agency protocols and procedures,” Atkins wrote in an email to the Idaho Press. “We take individual identity and the rights of those individuals very seriously. Sometimes, pieces of information, such as locations that may be impacted by an outbreak, for example, may be shared in an effort to clarify misinformation or supply vital information in protecting others that may be impacted by the information and its accuracy.”

He added officials have “independent protocols that guide decisions” about releasing information.

At Thursday’s press conference, Little concluded, “My belief is that most people of Idaho don’t like their personal information being shared.”

Last month, Florida released a list of names of elder-care facilities where staff or residents had tested positive for COVID-19. That reversal in policy came after increased pressure from the AARP, families of residents, and media organizations. Earlier in the month, the Miami Herald drafted a lawsuit against the state’s government over the issue.

INFORMATION AVAILABLE IN OTHER STATES

The only geographic information released about a case of COVID-19 in Idaho is the county, but that’s not the case elsewhere in the United States.

The Illinois Department of Public Health has the number of confirmed cases in each zip code statewide on its website, including both densely populated Chicago and rural areas of the state. Although it does not have cases broken down by zip code, the city of El Paso, Texas has a map of the city and the number of cases in each approximate area available on its website along with the number of cases and tests conducted. Dallas County, Texas is also reporting COVID-19 cases by zip code.

Other states have released information related to the number of cases associated with long-term care facilities and their locations. In Washington, 198 long-term care facilities had at least one case as of April 16. The data released from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services includes a list of specific facilities impacted, whether there was a death or not, but it does not specify the number of cases for every facility.

New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services is also identifying long-term care facilities with cases as outbreaks are discovered, and reporting the number of residents and staff members who test positive at the facility regardless of fatalities. In Massachusetts, at least 530 COVID-19 related deaths have stemmed from the 222 long-term care facilities where the disease has been detected. As of April 15, 4,163 residents and employees of the facilities tested positive for COVID-19.

From the Idaho Statesman

From the Idaho Statesman

by Betsy Z. Russell

BOISE — When the Idaho Press Club won its public records lawsuit against Ada County, the judge ruled that the county had repeatedly flouted the law, by taking the position that all public records are exempt from disclosure if they could possibly affect an array of broad concerns including “privacy,” “deliberative process,” “attorney-client,” “personnel,” and so forth — without reference to any of the more than 100 specific exemptions in the law.

Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail found in December that the county “not only did not follow the Idaho Public Records Act, it acted as though a different Act had been enacted — a reverse image of Idaho law.”

Now we know what that disregard for the law cost the county: $47,310. That was the award for the Press Club’s court costs and attorney fees that Bail approved in a Feb. 26 order.

“The county responded vigorously in briefing and in numerous declarations filed with the Court,” the judge wrote in her order. “The county’s motion to dismiss was lengthy and raised a number of arguments not supported by the Idaho Public Records Act, but which necessitated a substantial amount of effort on the plaintiff’s part of analyze and respond. … This case required considerable effort and commitment on the part of the plaintiff’s attorneys.”

It’s not that the elected Ada County officials, from the commissioners to the sheriff, had necessarily been purposely attempting to evade the public records law. Instead, it was the county prosecuting attorney’s office, under county Prosecutor Jan Bennetts, which acts as the in-house counsel for the county and its elected officials, that operated under a fundamental misunderstanding of the law, and enforced that misunderstanding in all its legal advice to our elected officials, leading them to violate the law over and over again.

This ruling should mark the end of those practices. County commissioners, in their reactions to the ruling, have emphasized that they want to be open and transparent, and that they plan additional training and review of their practices in regard to the Idaho Public Records Act.

There’s not often litigation over government agencies failing to comply with the Idaho Public Records Act. The “sole remedy” under the act for someone who is improperly denied public records is to get a lawyer and go to court, something few generally can afford to do. The Idaho Press Club filed the lawsuit only after a sustained, repeated pattern emerged of the county ignoring the law, regarding public records requests from multiple reporters for multiple news organizations in Idaho.

The judge’s fee order says the lawsuit “revealed an unlawful pattern of response to public records requests.”

“The results obtained were very beneficial to the plaintiff and the general public,” the judge wrote. “The thorough presentation of the issues, particularly, the extensive documentation of hundreds of documents redacted in their entirety, with redactions including the requesting party’s own information, and claims of privileges which did not exist in Idaho law, and the other responses detailed in the Court’s decision revealed a profound disregard for the Idaho Public Records Act’s requirements.”

“The decision was crafted to provide a reference for public officials and agencies to respond to Idaho Public Records Act requests in a manner consistent with Idaho law,” she wrote, providing “a hopefully useful guide for anyone wanting to comply with the law.”

Last week was Sunshine Week, a national initiative first launched by the American Society of News Editors in 2005 to educate the public about the importance of open government and the dangers of excessive and unnecessary secrecy. Smack in the middle of Sunshine Week, the Idaho Senate voted 27-6 in favor of HB 601, creating new public records exemptions for legislators and public officials; and the House voted unanimously in favor of SB 1338a, another bill creating new public records exemptions. Both bills headed to the governor’s desk.

On HB 601, Senate Majority Caucus Chair Kelly Anthon, R-Burley, told the Senate, “Legislators have privacy too. And I think this bill recognizes that some of the things that we do, in our work product and the way that we communicate with one another, and the importance of that process, are protected as well.”

SB 1338a, as originally proposed by Sen. Dan Johnson, R-Lewiston, would have made official state secrets of information so common that it’s published in the phone book – all addresses and phone numbers in all public records, plus email addresses. That would have made basic public records like county assessment records and voter registration unusable, as no record could tie a name to a specific address. Johnson proposed his bill in direct response to the Press Club’s court victory, professing shock at the judge’s ruling that such information “could not be redacted unless there was a specific statute authorizing such exemption.”

That’s exactly how the public records law works, and has always worked. Public records are presumed open, unless a specific law exempts them from disclosure.

To Johnson’s credit, he met with the Idaho Press Club and Idaho’s newspaper publishers, and realized his bill as first proposed was unworkable. As amended, it just requires redaction of social security numbers, birth dates, drivers license numbers and minors’ names.

In these uncertain times, citizens need more openness and transparency from their government — not less. So, a belated Happy Sunshine Week to everyone.

From the Idaho Statesman

From the AP/Times-News

SHOSHONE, Idaho (AP) — County commissioners in southern Idaho have temporarily banned video recordings of weekly public meetings despite advice against the motion from their legal counsel.

Lincoln County passed the motion Monday with commissioners Rick Ellis and Roy Hubert in favor of the ban and Commission Chairwoman Rebecca Wood as the only dissenting vote, the Time-News reported.

The motion was presented to commissioners a week after County Clerk Brenda Farnworth attempted to record a meeting with her cellphone in addition to taking the minutes, county officials said. The video, which was live streamed on Facebook, shows Ellis asking Wood to have the recording turned off before walking out when she refused, officials said.

County Prosecutor Richard Roats advised against the ban, explaining it could be considered arbitrary and capricious in a court of law.

Government “is for the people, by the people,” resident Steven King said. “We are the people. We need transparency in government.”

Only one person spoke in favor of the ban.

From the AP/Times-News

Editorial from the Idaho Falls Post Register

Why is it that every time lawmakers wade into the Idaho Sunshine Law, it’s to reduce government transparency?

It is, of course, annoying to have members of the public crawling through your emails and text messages.

But elected office is a sacred public trust, and it comes at a price.

Privacy is a fundamental right, and it is up to every person whether to give it up. When you enter into the public arena, and particularly when you choose to pursue elected office, you are volunteering to be subject to transparency.

The greatest price of public office in a representative democracy is public accountability. Lawmakers seem to have forgotten that basic fact this year.

Legislation recently introduced by Rep. Megan Blanksma would blow significant holes in the structure of accountability that works to ensure that our representatives are working in our interest rather than their own.

This year’s bill would narrow the beam of sunlight that was shed on state government against its will. Lawmakers did not pass the Idaho Sunshine Law. The voters did it through an initiative. In essence, the law sets up a procedure that allows any member of the public to examine a public official’s emails, text messages and letters, along with records of public spending, public contracts and other public business.

Not everything lawmakers say or write is subject to transparency. Lawmakers’ truly private communications — say, two lawmakers deciding where they should eat lunch — aren’t public record at present. Public records are defined in the Sunshine Law as “any writing containing information relating to the conduct or administration of the public’s business.” So if there’s no public business involved, there’s no public record.

Blanksma’s bill would close off important information that does involve public business.

For example, it would allow lawmakers to redact the identities of members of the public they interact with so long as they aren’t other government officials, registered lobbyists or “representatives of an organization.” This third category is so amorphous that it will allow lawmakers to redact whomever they please.

What counts as an organization? A group of people who have a common business interest in a piece of legislation and are pursuing an organized advocacy effort but who have not taken the step of formally incorporating — would they count as an organization? Or would they have all their information redacted, ensuring they can attempt to influence legislation from the shadows? Since the legislation does not define “organization,” lawmakers will be able to choose whatever definition suits them at a particular moment.

What counts as representation? Could the head of a business who’s pushing a bill that will pad his pocket communicate with lawmakers about that legislation, and then hide it by prefacing all his emails with, “Speaking only for myself…” — the sort of wink-and-nod that lawmakers understand intuitively. Because representation is not defined either, nearly any communication between someone who isn’t an elected official or a registered lobbyist and a lawmaker could be redacted.

Certainly, a member of the public who discloses personal medical information, their Social Security number, or other highly personal information that is not related to the conduct of public business deserves to have that information protected. But by entering into the public fray and attempting to influence policy, they waive their right to remain anonymous. It is standard practice, for example, to require anyone testifying at a public hearing to identify themselves.

Nothing engenders public trust more than a pledge to be public and accountable in office, which is why everyone running for office pledges to be transparent on the campaign trail. And nothing undermines and betrays their trust more than the attempt to hide from public accountability.

Fundamentally, good government means that representatives are working in the public interest. When they use the power that is granted to them by the public to further their own interests, that has a name: corruption.

And corruption thrives in the shadows. Lawmakers should reject Blanksma’s bill and preserve the measures of transparency that keep corruption at bay.

Editorial from the Idaho Falls Post Register

From the Idaho Statesman

by BETSY Z. RUSSELL

BOISE — A divided House State Affairs Committee on Friday narrowly approved HB 601, the bill from Rep. Megan Blanksma to amend the Idaho Public Records Act to add new exemptions for lawmakers and public officials.

Blanksma, R-Hammett, told the committee the bill was intended to “tighten up” the law, because it takes “a massive amount of time” for government, including the Legislature, to respond to public records requests.

“This is to help you in your drafting process, to keep that out of the public eye when you’re trying to develop those ideas,” she told the lawmakers on the committee.

The bill includes new exemptions for the personal notes of any public official in Idaho that haven’t been shared with others, including the governor; research requests by legislators to legislative staff, including documents developed as a result; personal information, including names, in constituent communications to lawmakers; and communications between lawmakers that aren’t about public business. It also requires more specificity, including a specified date range, for all future public records requests.

Matt Davison, publisher of the Idaho Press, spoke against the bill on behalf of the Newspaper Association of Idaho.

“The laws we have in place are good, they’ve been tested over time, they’ve been backed up in courts multiple times,” Davison told the committee. “It seems to me we have a system that works and has worked.”

He added, “We don’t want to hamper you from doing your job. But we want to make sure that there are open records.”

Ken Burgess, lobbyist for the Idaho Press Club, also spoke in opposition to the bill. He thanked Blanksma for showing him and the club’s 1st Amendment Committee early versions of the bill, saying, “It is a softer version of the first couple that we saw, and I think we appreciate that.”

But Burgess said some of the new exemptions proposed in the bill were problematic. For example, Idaho Education News published a story about a publicly-announced meeting between the governor and the state schools superintendent, after requesting the governor’s notes from the meeting under the Public Records Act, which were willingly provided. That could no longer happen under the proposed bill.

The new exemptions aimed at the process of developing and drafting legislation are particularly troublesome, Burgess said. “Our experience has been in recent years, that the Legislature has been more willing to share that type of information … than it has been historically, and we’d like to keep that in place.”

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“In the end, that’s where the sausage-making really occurs with regards to public legislation, and we believe the public ought to have a right to know the ingredients that went into that sausage,” Burgess said.

Rep. Joe Palmer, R-Meridian, moved to send the bill to the full House with a recommendation that it “do pass.” The motion carried on a divided voice vote with slightly less than half the committee dissenting. Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, asked to be recorded as voting “no.”

Rep. Brooke Green, D-Boise, said, “I’m actually really torn on this for a number of reasons. … There’s some parts I don’t think go far enough, and some … go too far. … I do believe that sometimes the media does go overboard and as a result hurt people.”

To become law, the bill still would need passage in the full House and Senate and the governor’s signature.

From the Idaho Statesman

From the Associated Press

By Rebecca Boone

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Several news and legal organizations have told the Idaho Supreme Court that they believe state prison officials are required to reveal the source of drugs used in executions under public records law.

The American Bar Association, the Idaho Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Idaho Press Club and others filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of a lawsuit that University of Idaho professor Aliza Cover brought against the Idaho Department of Correction. Several news organizations, including The Associated Press, the Idaho Statesman, Boise television station KTVB and others joined with the Idaho Press Club in its brief.

Department of Correction didn’t have any comment on the filings, spokesman Jeff Ray said.

Cover, who is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, sued after prison officials largely denied her request for execution-related records in 2017. A state judge said last year that prison officials had to turn over much of the information she sought, including documents that would show the supplier of the lethal injection drugs used in the state’s most recent execution.

The Department of Correction appealed, and the state Supreme Court is expected to hear the case this year.

Many states are finding it more difficult to carry out executions because many drug companies don’t want their products used to kill inmates and are refusing to sell them to correctional departments.

The groups that filed friend-of-the-court briefs in Idaho said information about the source of lethal injection drugs should be available to the public to ensure that the state isn’t violating the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Idaho Press Club said in its filing Friday that reliable information is needed so the public can determine whether executions are fair and humane.

“Not only does allowing the press to report on executions promote a more informed discussion of the death penalty, it promotes the public perception of fairness and transparency concerning the death penalty,” the news organizations wrote.

The American Bar Association made a similar argument, contending that secrecy undermines public confidence in the justice system.

From the Associated Press

From the Twin Falls Times-News

by RYAN BLAKE

BOISE — Companies that supply Idaho with drugs used to execute death row inmates will remain secret for now, despite objections from some lawmakers and open-government advocates.

Rules outlining the state’s process for the death penalty were approved Wednesday by committees in the House and Senate.

The rules prevent the Department of Correction from sharing information that could jeopardize the ability to carry out an execution. They were updated last year to clarify specific exemptions, like the names of medical staff carrying out the execution.

But the update also included a provision that prevents disclosure of information that would identify the pharmaceutical company supplying the state with lethal injection drugs — a long-debated issue in the state.

Department director Josh Tewalt said most details on executions are already publicly available. Allowing the supplier to be identified would create negative attention, limiting the state’s access to the drugs, Tewalt said.

“Our interests are aligned with people who have concerns about the process,” he said. “None of us want this to be a process that is conducted without integrity, without professionalism.”

University of Idaho law professor Aliza Cover sued for access to the supplier information in 2018. A state judge ruled the department had violated the public records law by withholding the information, but the decision was appealed and will go before the Idaho Supreme Court later this year.

Cover said the rule undermines democratic participation and government accountability and increases concern about “botched” executions. As execution drugs have become less available, states like Idaho have increased secrecy and many in the public may be uncomfortable if they knew the process, Cover said.

“Idahoans, whatever their view on the death penalty, have an interest in knowing how their officials are obtaining those drugs and how they are using taxpayer dollars,” she said. “It seems now the Board of Correction is seeking not to increase its transparency but to limit it further.”

Members of the ACLU and the Idaho Press Club also spoke in opposition to the rule.

Agencies in Idaho use administrative rules to interpret and enforce state laws. Idaho’s public records law allows the Board of Corrections to set it’s exemption rules but requires them to balance the need for secrecy versus the public’s right to know.

Rep. Jason Monks, R-Nampa, said the rule simply clarifies the existing rules.

“I believe the department had the ability to withhold that information before because this … could jeopardize the department’s ability to carry out that execution,” Monks said.

A court already decided the rule violated public records law, and adding it would open the state up for more litigation, Rep. John Gannon, D-Boise, said.

“I think the best thing to do at this point is to follow the decision that’s been made and to be careful what we put in rules,” Gannon said. “It will just end up costing more money in legal fees if the department is wrong again.”

A motion in the House committee to reject only the section related to the exemption for suppliers failed 7-11. The rules were approved as written on a subsequent vote.

The Senate committee also approved the rules as written, with Sen. Grant Burgoyne, D-Boise, casting the lone vote against. He said the rule could violate public records law and disclosure benefits those for and against the death penalty.

“I do not think that looking at (the statute) that the interest in confidentiality clearly outweighs the public interest,” Burgoyne said.

From the Twin Falls Times-News

From the Idaho State Journal

By Jeff Papworth

ARIMO — The new Marsh Valley School District 21 board chairman says the board has unknowingly violated the Idaho open meetings law for years by conducting its entire annual superintendent evaluation behind closed doors.

For all of the 13 years that K.G. Fonnesbeck has been a Marsh Valley school board member, he said the board’s vote on approving the superintendent’s evaluation and contractual changes have been accomplished in one motion in executive sessions, a method the board recently discovered was an open meetings law violation.

Fonnesbeck, the board’s new chairman, said the board first learned it was committing the open meetings law violations when it was notified by the Idaho Department of Education’s attorneys last month that it had broken the law at its Dec. 10 meeting by approving Marsh Valley School District Superintendent Marvin Hansen’s evaluation, contract extension and pay increase during a closed-door executive session.

On Dec. 10, the school board unanimously approved Hansen’s evaluation, contract extension and 3 percent salary increase in one motion during the executive session before announcing the moves during its subsequent open meeting before the public later that night.

The board opened Tuesday’s meeting by unanimously approving a motion acknowledging December’s open meetings violation and voiding the closed-door approvals regarding Hansen.

While the closed-door approvals were a violation, Fonnesbeck added that it was within the board’s right to do the actual evaluation in a private session.

“As soon as you know you’re doing something wrong, you change it and do it the right way and that’s what we’ve done,” Fonnesbeck said. “Now we know. And in the future, it’ll be done that way. Anything that’s a compensation or a benefit will be dealt with in open session.”

Subsequently at Tuesday’s meeting, the school board approved Hansen’s evaluation and contract extension in separate motions while deciding to postpone a decision on his raise until May or June.

“We are not going to give him any kind of pay raise until we have our meeting with our school teachers,” Fonnesbeck said, “and we know what kind of cost of living raises they will be getting.”

Hansen’s evaluation was approved by a 3-0 board vote on Tuesday with new board members Jill Gunter and Paige Armstrong abstaining.

The extension of Hansen’s contract for the 2020-21 school year was then approved by a 3-2 board vote.

“When we feel like we have a really top-notch superintendent, it’s kind of a bonus for them to have that contract extended, so they’re not out shopping or looking to go to another school district,” Fonnesbeck said after Tuesday’s board meeting. “That’s kind of one of those things that helps you keep them around.”

Board member Kathy Egan, who opposed extending Hansen’s contract, said during the meeting, “It sounds to me like we need to err on the side of caution. I can’t see any reason why we can’t push (the decision on the extension) off.”

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the board unanimously decided to make Fonnesbeck its new chairman. Fonnesbeck took over the chairman’s position from board member Don Nielsen who endorsed him prior to the board’s vote on the matter.

“The only difference is I have the gavel,” Fonnesbeck said about his new position. “The only improvement is if we can improve on our communications. If you look at anything across the country, the No. 1 thing that causes problems is lack of good communications. Anything you can do to improve communications is a benefit. I don’t think I can improve on it any more than Don did, but I will keep working at it.”

Fonnesbeck retired as a Bannock County Sheriff’s Office captain in 2016.

He said he regularly asks law enforcement officers to be present at the school board’s meetings but this recently became an issue when some district residents said the presence of Bannock County sheriff’s deputies at the board’s November and December meetings made the residents feel intimidated.

There were no sheriff’s deputies at Tuesday’s board meeting.

“We hear a lot of bad about our district right now. There’s a lot of turmoil,” Fonnesbeck said during Tuesday’s board meeting. “But when you look at the (Idaho Standards Achievement) test, it’s just amazing that there’s only two schools that scored higher than us in all of Eastern Idaho. That’s a pretty great accomplishment.”

From the Idaho State Journal