From Idaho Education News

Responding to a formal complaint from Idaho Education News, the Caldwell School Board on Wednesday admitted to violating Idaho open meetings law.

The violations — and Idaho Education News’ complaint — stems from nine hours of closed meetings Saturday, and the board’s subsequent decision to hire Shalene French as the district’s new superintendent.

On Wednesday, the board passed what is called a motion of “self-recognition” of an open meeting law violation. What that means is that the board rescinded its job offer to French, and will revisit the hiring issue. The board has scheduled a meeting for 5 p.m. Monday to revisit the decision — and perhaps make another job offer.

What happened Saturday

Trustees met in closed executive session to interview three candidates for the superintendent’s job. State law allows a government body to hold an executive session to “consider hiring a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent.”

However, the executive session law also is clear on a second point: “No executive session may be held for the purpose of taking any final action or making any final decision.”

The crux of the issue begins when Saturday’s executive session ended, and when trustees met in a 16-minute open session.

Immediately after going into open session, trustees call French to say they want to offer her the superintendent’s job. Only after they get French on the phone do trustees make a motion to offer her the job. During the conversation, Board Chairman Chuck Stout referred to a “unanimous vote” supporting the job offer — but at that time, the board had not yet voted in open session. Later in the meeting, the board does vote, unanimously, to offer French the job.

Here is the link to the video from Saturday’s meeting:

What happened Wednesday

The Canyon County prosecutor’s office forwarded Idaho Education News’ complaint to the Caldwell district. Trustees held an executive session to discuss the complaint — joined by interim Superintendent Jodie Mills and district attorney William Gigray.

After the executive session, the board admitted to an open meetings law violation — but not to an illegal vote in executive session.

All five trustees took turns saying they did not vote in executive session. Referring to his remark Saturday about a unanimous vote, Stout said, “I did make an incorrect statement.”

Said trustee Kent Marmon: “I think the feeling among the board meetings was that we supported Dr. French, although nobody ever took a vote.”

Instead, the board conceded a “procedural error” pertaining to Saturday’s agenda. Gigray said trustees should have amended its Saturday agenda to reflect their plan to make a job offer — or wait until Monday’s regularly scheduled meeting to make the offer.

There was confusion in-house, said Gigray. District staffers didn’t expect trustees to choose a new superintendent Saturday.

“We shouldn’t really have a cloud over any selection of a superintendent at this point because of an open meeting law claim,” Gigray said.

Here’s the link to the video from Wednesday’s meeting.

From Idaho Education News

From Idaho Education News

Shalene French was selected superintendent for the Caldwell School District on Saturday — after weeks of hiring secrecy and nine hours of closed-door interviews and deliberations by trustees.

The hiring was not announced until Monday night’s regular board meeting. French, the director of human resources for the Bonneville School District in Idaho Falls, broke the news of her hiring in a video posted on Bonneville’s Facebook page. She has spent 20 years with Bonneville schools and started as a math teacher.

On Saturday, Caldwell trustees interviewed three candidates — French; Jay Hummel superintendent in Ashland, Ore., and former Kuna School District superintendent; and Monica White, principal of Caldwell’s Canyon Springs Alternative High School. Each was interviewed during a closed executive session, and patrons could not witness the interviews. The candidates’ applications and resumes were not made public.

Originally, 16 applications were reviewed and vetted through a search committee led by Christine Donnell, a former Meridian schools superintendent working as a consultant through the Idaho School Boards Association.

The committee narrowed the search to three finalists. During a special board meeting on March 1, Donnell gave trustees packets that included the finalists’  resumes, applications and reference letters. She asked each trustee to review the packets before Saturday’s interviews.

Donnell gave the four trustees in attendance a “confidentiality statement” and asked them to sign it in efforts of “keeping the names to ourselves.” (Trustee Tom Briten was not at the meeting).

The trustees unanimously approved a motion to “accept the superintendent report given by Christine Donnell” during their meeting. The report, including the resumes and applications, was not made public. (Click here to watch video of the meeting.) 

Idaho Education News requested resumes and applications for the finalists; the request was denied. Board clerk Yvonne McKee responded in writing on Friday that the district would need $500 to $600 to cover “attorney fees, staff fees, redactions, copies, etc.”

Idaho Education News appealed the fee request. Under Idaho State Code 74-102, “no fee shall be charged for the first two (2) hours of labor in responding to a request for public records, or for copying the first one hundred (100) pages of paper records that are requested.”

McKee on Monday rescinded the request for payment and shared two documents — a template checklist for the trustees to use as they interviewed candidates and a schedule of events. Resumes and applications were not included. District attorney William Gigray said he believes resumes are exempt from public disclosure. He cited Idaho code 74-106, which exempts personal information, health records and documents pertaining to professional discipline. The code also states personnel records are exempt from disclosure “other than the public official’s public service or employment history.”

French’s contract, including her salary, also has not been made public. During Saturday’s 16-minute open board meeting, Chairman Chuck Stout begins by calling French on the phone to offer her the job. He tells her over the phone the salary would fall in the range between $130,000 and $140,000 plus traditional district benefits. He also tells French the decision to hire her “was a unanimous vote” that happened during executive session.

Executive sessions are reserved for candidate evaluations. According to state law, “No executive session may be held for the purpose of taking any final action or making any final decision.”

Former superintendent Tim Rosandick is still under contract for 2015-16 at a salary of $137,000, after the board voted in June of 2015 to oust Rosandick and deputy superintendent Luci Asumendi. The district agreed to keep Rosandick employed in a consulting role while he continued to collect his salary.

Jodie Mills has served as Caldwell’s interim superintendent over the past school year.

In Bonneville, French is responsible for directing, administering and overseeing the functions of the human resource office. She reviews applications and the hiring of certified and classified employees. She oversees the supervision and evaluation of all district employees, personnel files, equal opportunity and worker’s compensation. She works with employees to resolve work-related issues and concerns.

French has served as a middle school teacher, basketball coach, assistant  principal and principal.

Other superintendent openings

The Lakeland School District hired Becky Meyers to replace retiring superintendent Brad Murray. Meyers is a long-time educator with the Lake Pend Oreille School District, currently serving as the district’s assistant superintendent. She previously served as the principal at Sandpoint High.

At least seven other superintendent positions are currently open in Idaho: North Gem, Fremont County, Mullan, Council, Valley and Orofino. The Syringa Mountain School in Hailey also is seeking new leadership.

From Idaho Education News

Credit line: From the Twin Falls Times-News

Idaho law protects your right to monitor the actions of state and local governments by providing access to public records. The Times-News tested that access by dispatching a team of reporters to ask for public records relevant to our readers’ lives — among them, police video, building permits, 911 call audio and food safety inspection results. The responses were sometimes swift and professional, sometimes convoluted. Inside today, the team’s stories reveal how each request unfolded — and suggest what you might learn through records requests of your own.

“Open government is the cornerstone of a free society.”

That’s the opening statement of Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s manual explaining the state’s 1990 public records law. In short, the law protects citizens’ right to monitor the actions of state and local governments by providing access to government records.

And thanks to a change by the 2011 Legislature, you can get the first 100 pages of your public records request for free.

The Times-News tested that access last month by dispatching a team of reporters to ask for public records relevant to our readers’ lives — building permits, police video, food safety inspection results, standardized test scores — from agencies chosen arbitrarily.

Using personal email addresses and not identifying themselves as journalists, the reporters all used similar letters citing the applicable sections of Idaho code. And they all sent off their requests between 8 and 10 a.m. on a Wednesday.

Then they watched the response — sometimes swift and professional, sometimes a little convoluted.

Reporter Julie Wootton had test scores from Hansen School District in hand within 2 1/2 hours. Jerome County took longer than two weeks to supply the commissioner emails reporter Tetona Dunlap requested.

Most agencies didn’t require the request to be refiled on their own forms. A few recognized the reporters’ names and contacted them at work. And none charged for the records they eventually supplied.

Inside today, the team’s stories reveal how each request unfolded — and suggest what you might learn through records requests of your own.

Request: Teacher Contracts

What we asked for: All 2015-16 Valley Elementary School teacher contracts.

Who we asked: Valley School District, based in Hazelton.

What happened next: I received a response with the teacher contracts about 24 hours after emailing the request to clerk Lorrie Meek.

What we got: A 14-page PDF included every individual teacher contract.

What you could learn: Each contract includes the employee’s name, how many days he or she works per year and how much she’s paid. Pay ranges from $33,200 to $45,305 annually.

There’s one exception: A teacher contracted to work only 80 days — from January through August — will be paid $16,350.

You can find out how much other Magic Valley teachers are paid. And sometimes, it’s easily accessible online without filing a public records request.

But most Idaho school districts and charter schools aren’t meeting state transparency requirements. As of October, only 14 had all of the required financial and teacher contract information posted online, Idaho Education News reported.

Since then, more districts have jumped on board and posted teacher contracts online. But I couldn’t find that information on the Valley School District’s website.

Request: Deputy’s Body Camera Video

What we asked for: A copy of footage from a police body-worn camera during the interview of a man suspected of robbing a Burley pharmacy.

The exact request: “… access to and a copy of video from the body-worn camera of the deputy identified as ‘365/MBA’ (possibly Deputy Matt Arthur) during the questioning of robbery suspect Chandler Lee Palmer on Nov. 30, 2014.”

Who we asked: Cassia County Sheriff’s Office. No email addresses for the sheriff’s office are listed on the county website, so this request was faxed.

What happened next: Just five hours after the request was faxed, an employee of the sheriff’s office responded to the email address included in the request to ask how I would like to get the video.

“I am burning the ‘body-worn camera video’ you have requested at this time, will you be coming in to pick up this disc or do you need it mailed to you?” she wrote. “If you prefer to have it mailed please provide me with a valid mailing address for you.”

I provided a mailing address Feb. 4, and the sheriff’s office employee sent the video Feb. 5 from Cassia County. It arrived at my Twin Falls apartment Feb. 8.

What we got: Inside the manila envelope with bubble-wrap padding was a DVD in a white square envelope. There was also a photocopy of the form request I sent with a handwritten note at the bottom:

“This is the only body camera video I have for this case. Mailed back on 02-05-2016.”

No payment was requested for the DVD or the postage to send it.

What you could learn: In the video, which is just over two minutes long, Arthur is beginning an interview with Palmer, who seems relaxed for being under arrest. Palmer is wearing a Penn State University sweat shirt, blue jeans and tan shoes.

Arthur stands in the doorway of an interview room while Palmer sits in a chair against a wall. The conversation between the two men is easy and relaxed as Palmer looks at a stack of paperwork. Later in the video, Arthur sits down at the table with Palmer and reads the paperwork, which spells out Palmer’s Miranda rights.

As Palmer begins to spell his name for the deputy, the video cuts out.

Request: Building Inspections

What we asked for: Building inspections for Mountain America Credit Union at 1061 Blue Lakes Blvd. N. in Twin Falls.

Who we asked: Joshua Palmer, city spokesman.

What happened next: I sent the email to Palmer on Feb. 3, and he forwarded the request to Wendy Thompson, administrative assistant for the Twin Falls Building Department. The next day she emailed two PDF files. One was all the permits pertaining to Mountain America Credit Union, and the other contained five pages of emails regarding the project and an ADA-compliant sidewalk. The emails were between Mitchel Humble, deputy city manager; Ben Christensen, the bank’s project manager; and Troy Vitek, assistant city engineer.

Thompson wrote in her email: “If you would like information regarding the individual inspections done on each of these permits or if you would like information for the property prior to this project let me know.”

What we got: One PDF Thompson sent contained 56 pages of documents including the building permit application, a wastewater questionnaire, sewer capacity worksheet and change of contractor notice, among many others.

What you could learn: The documents are rich with specific details about the business and its construction, such as how many employees will work at the bank, the fees the company had to pay to build and open the bank, details on specific construction materials and schematics of structural and mechanical systems.

Request: 911 Call Audio

What we asked for: An audio copy of a 911 call from a 2013 crash that killed a 58-year-old man driving a tractor on U.S. 30 near Hansen.

Our request was detailed: “… a copy of a tape of the 911 call made by Rick Webb about 7:30 a.m. Oct. 2, 2013, in regards to a fatal crash on eastbound U.S. Highway 30 that killed Salvador Centeno-Hernandez.”

Who we asked: Southern Idaho Regional Communications, which handles emergency dispatching for Twin Falls County. Because the agency didn’t list a general contact email, the request was sent to Director John Moore and Deputy Director Kristy Churchman, whose names, titles and email addresses were found on SIRCOMM’s website under the “Contact Us” page.

What happened next: Moore responded just 25 minutes after he received the request. The body of the email was simple and short: “Please see attached response. Regards, John Moore.”

The attachment, sent in PDF format, was a form letter with several options for the agency to choose.

The fourth option was marked with an X and read like this: “Your request has been reviewed and cannot be approved because the records you seek are not obtainable in the format requested or are the records of another agency. Contact the appropriate agency directly.”

The request was denied.

Under that sentence, though, there was an explanation: “Specifically: Per SIRCOMM records retention policy audio recordings are only kept for a period of one year from date of incident.”

So in simple terms, a copy of the requested 911 call was denied because SIRCOMM keeps recordings for only one year.

Another box was marked with an X on the letter, this one to say that SIRCOMM’s attorney had reviewed both the request and the response. The letter was signed by Moore.

Other options in the form-letter response were for requests that were approved, requests that SIRCOMM would need more time to answer and requests that were denied on a legal basis.

What we got: Nothing.

What you could learn: SIRCOMM’s quick, efficient response indicates the agency is accustomed and well prepared to receive and handle public record requests.

It seems SIRCOMM should be able to quickly supply the audio version of a 911 call if the request is within a year of the incident, although it’s unclear how pending litigation or other circumstances might affect the agency’s willingness or ability to provide it.

Request: Lawmakers’ Emails

What we asked for: Correspondence sent and received by the House and Senate Health and Welfare Committee chairmen between Oct. 1, 2015, and Feb. 3, regarding either Medicaid expansion or the Primary Care Access Program.

Who we asked: Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, and Sen. Lee Heider, R-Twin Falls, chairmen of the House and Senate committees, respectively.

What happened next: Both lawmakers referred my Feb. 3 request to the Legislative Services Office. LSO sent the records, by mail, to my apartment in Boise. (Next time, I should specify I work in the building.) I stopped at LSO on Feb. 11 and was told they had been sent. I received them Feb. 15.

What we got: Two manila envelopes full of printouts of emails.

What you could learn: Heider, whose committee held a hearing on Medicaid expansion Feb. 2, had received by far the most correspondence on the subject — including 16 emails just on Feb. 2. Of them, 14 were from expansion supporters, one opposed Medicaid expansion and one opposed PCAP. The Medicaid expansion and PCAP opponents were both doctors. Out of the 14 supporters, two identified themselves as nurses and two as working at community health clinics.

Heider’s correspondence also included the briefing materials provided by the governor’s office in advance of the January press conference at which Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, Health and Welfare Director Dick Armstrong and the two committee chairmen rolled out the details of the PCAP proposal.

Wood’s emails were mostly from the same person, a Medicaid expansion supporter who sends the entire House and Senate — and most of the state-level officials and press corps in Idaho — copied-and-pasted news articles prefaced with his own commentary on the topic.

Request: Building Permit Application

What we asked for: The most recent building permit and permit application for a business setting up at 129 W. Main St. in Burley.

I’d heard rumors a few times since last year about the type of business that could be moving there.

Who we asked: Gary Pawson, Burley’s chief building official.

What happened next: I didn’t get a response from Pawson that day, Feb. 3, so I called his office the next day and left a message. His secretary, Melissa Lee, called back and told me Pawson was in Las Vegas for the rest of the week. She said she’d be able to help me instead.

When I told Lee what I was looking for, she said I could find the application on the department’s website but if I had any trouble she’d find it, scan it and send it to me. On the website I found a list of links to PDFs for permit applications — but not the one filled out by this business.

I gave Lee a call to explain more clearly what I was looking for, and she told me she’d be able to find the permit application and email it the following Monday. Monday came and there wasn’t anything in my email. It turns out she wrote my email address wrong when we spoke, but after she took my address down again, the filled-out application in a PDF file was in my inbox. In all, it took five business days to get the record.

What we got: A two-page PDF file containing the application but not a permit.

What you could learn: The application was submitted to the city May 5 and cost nearly $1,700. It did not say what kind of business is moving in. The application just described the nature of the work: a building remodeling to the tune of $225,000. The owners are listed as Bret and Ty Taylor, and the contractor is J&L Electric, with contact information listed for both.

Request: County Audit

What we asked for: A copy of the most recent audit on Minidoka County prepared by Gerald Price & Associates.

Who we asked: Patty Temple, county clerk.

What happened next: Temple replied to my email later that day, Feb. 3, to tell me she was in a conference in Boise through the week but that once she received a copy of the audit, she’d be able to send it to me. She didn’t say when she’d have a copy ready.

There was nothing in my email that week. On the following Tuesday, I gave Temple a call and left a message asking if she had the record ready to send.

Not long after, I had the county audit in my inbox. The total time it took to get the record: five business days.

What we got: A 79-page PDF file.

What you could learn: The audit contains a list of county taxes for the fiscal year 2015, fund balances, budgeted use of funds for fiscal 2016, county assets, revenues and the county’s insurance coverage.

On one page is a comparison of expenditures in 2014 and 2015; some of the focus areas are weeds, parks and recreation, sheriff, zoning and building and hospital spending.

The standouts are an increase of more than $371,000 in “general items” and a decrease of more than $52,000 in “jr college.” I’m going to dig into the latter more for another story.

Auditors made some conclusions made as they looked to the fiscal 2016 budget: Property values haven’t been adversely affected by the economic downturn. A 3 percent limit for property tax dollar increases barely offsets a decrease in other revenues in case major repairs are needed. And the next budget will be impacted by state sales tax revenue and continued reduction in the county’s investments.

Request: Info on Licensed Dogs

What we asked for: A list of all the Burley residents who purchased city licenses for their dogs from Jan. 1, 2015, through Jan. 1, as well as the given names and breeds of all the dogs licensed in the city.

Who we asked: The city of Burley.

What happened next: Within seven hours, City Clerk Ellen Maier responded with a phone call. She said the city could immediately comply with a printout of all the names and addresses of dog owners. But the information on dog names and breeds is included in registration forms filled out by dog owners and put into a binder. There are about 1,400 registrations, and Maier provided a cost of $44.30 to copy them, which took into account the 100 free copies the city is required to supply. I revised my request, asking for a subset: the 10 most recent registration forms.

What we got: The list of dog owners was sent via email overnight, and I picked up the copies of registration forms at City Hall at 9:30 a.m. the day following my request.

What you could learn: The spreadsheet’s alphabetical listing of dog owners includes their addresses, how many dogs they own and the dogs’ license numbers.

Each animal license application includes the owner’s name, address and phone number, and the dog’s breed, color, sex and name. Among the 29 applications I received, four were for replacement tags. Three of the 29 dogs were named Max, eight were Chihuahuas and 18 were male.

Request: Farm Subsidy

What we asked for: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2008 Disaster Program payment for Big Sky Dairy, 30 E. 200 S., Gooding.

I knew the dairy had received a payment that year because it showed up on the nonprofit Environmental Working Group’s website. EWG is a content provider for public interest groups.

Before making my request, I researched various USDA contacts and called Kent Willett at Oregon’s Farm Service Agency FOIA service center to explain what I was doing and to ask his advice for requesting the info from the Idaho service center, which he gave freely.

Willett also said federal FOIA laws are different than state FOIA laws, and because of privacy issues, only certain information is available to the public.

Who we asked: I emailed my request to Jeremy Nalder, an agriculture program specialist in Idaho’s Farm Service Agency FOIA service center.

What happened next: Nalder replied by email two business days later with FSA-standardized answers. In the first paragraph, the FSA acknowledged receiving the request and assigned it a control number. In the next, the FSA said it processes requests in a “first-in, first-out” basis and said it has 20 working days to respond.

In the third paragraph, the FSA said the records I was looking for are available to the public on the FSA website. Nalder gave a link to the web address where I could download the names, addresses and payment information.

What we got: From there, I downloaded two spreadsheet files. The first listed every subsidy recipient in the U.S. that had received a payment in 2008 — 6,750 were in Idaho alone — and the other had dollar amounts of each payment in the U.S. Narrowing the search was easy, but I wasn’t confident I had found all the payments. The total payments I found for Big Sky Dairy were not as large as the $282,693 total EWG posted on its website.

The rest of the information, except for the dollar amounts, was coded, and one type of payment was not readily distinguishable from another — although Nalder gave me a link to an explanation of the codes. In all, 1,212 codes are listed, which include the categories of dairy deficiency, dairy indemnity, milk diversion and dairy termination, for example. Other categories include American Indian livestock feed, clean lakes, rice diversion, loan deficiency and market gains.

What you could learn: The USDA’s information is cumbersome. The EWG website is user-friendly, easier to navigate than the USDA’s and made me feel confident I hadn’t missed something.

But no matter where you go for the information, you can’t know the details or circumstances surrounding a particular farm’s subsidy payment. For example, you can find out how big a disaster payment a certain farmer received, but you can’t find out whether the payment was for crop damage due to pests, drought or another disaster.

Request: Officials’ Emails

What we asked for: Emails from April 21, 2015, to May 28, 2015, to and from Jerome County Commission Chairman Charles Howell, Vice Chairman Cathy Roemer and Commissioner Roger Morley regarding a Jerome rendering plant or a plant to process dead stock.

Who we asked: I emailed the records request to Howell on Feb. 3, using his email address listed on the county website.

What happened next: After receiving an auto-response message — “I am out of the office until Nov 7th Thankyou for the info—-Charlie” — I also sent the same request to Roemer and Morley, using their email addresses listed on the county website.

For each of the three, I had to verify I was the one who sent the email. For each, I received a message like this one: “Thank you for verifying your email address. As a trusted sender, your future messages will go directly to Charlie Howell’s inbox. Sendio’s Opt-Inbox technology ensures users receive only the email they want.”

Besides the automatic emails that verified I was not a spammer, I received no correspondence. And on the Jerome County website I found no general county email address to send my request to.

On Feb. 19, I resent my requests. Within the hour, I received a phone call from Roemer. She said I should have been contacted by the county’s lawyer already. She wanted to know if I had received the information I requested; I told her I had not.

What we got: That day, I received a PDF containing 25 pages of emails. The first couple of pages were the original email I sent Feb. 3, and messages between the commissioners letting the others know that they needed to comb through emails sent or received dealing with a rendering plant or a plant to process dead stock.

What you could learn: One email is a 14-page article on beekeepers in the West and the effect of pesticides on hives, sent to Morley from Lee Halper, a Jerome resident. Halper also sent Morley a 2015 New York Times story titled “U.S. Details New Efforts to Support Ailing Bees.”

The last page is another email from Halper with Idaho’s code for domestic exemption from needing a water right. Domestic purposes are defined as water for homes or public campgrounds that do not exceed 13,000 gallons per day.

Request: Food Inspections

What we asked for: Copies of the food health inspection reports for Burley businesses from Dec. 1, 2015, to Jan. 15.

Who we asked: South Central Public Health District.

What happened next: The agency’s public information officer sent an email within four hours of my Feb. 3 request, saying the request had been turned over to Josh Jensen, the district’s public health program manager.

Jensen called 24 hours after the original request was filed and asked for clarification on what types of businesses to include in the report. I pared down the request to include only restaurants.

Jensen said the request would need to be refiled on the health district’s public records request form, and he asked for what purpose the records would be used. He also suggested that I look online and see if the information I was requesting was there.

I filled out the health district’s request form immediately. The requested records were received at 5:35 p.m. Feb. 9.

What we got: The health district sent an electronic file containing eight food establishment inspection reports and three food establishment inspection forms.

What you could learn: In the three forms, one business did not have any critical violations; another, McDonald’s, did not have any critical violations but was told to make sure water was not leaking onto the ice machine. A Dec. 2 inspection at Taco Bell in North Burley revealed that the facility’s sinks were not in proper working order and employees were not washing their hands consistently, an inspector reported; the restaurant was also not keeping food storage off the floor.

The eight reports list the number of risk factor violations and retail practice violations along with the number of repeat violations for each. Only one business, Taco Bell in North Burley, showed any violations in these reports, for a Dec. 16 inspection. The business again received a critical violation for employees not washing their hands and exposed portions of their arms. The business did not have a hand-washing lavatory equipped to provide water at the appropriate temperature, and food storage was not being kept 6 feet from the floor, an inspector reported.

Request: Governor’s Emails

What we asked for: Correspondence sent and received between Oct. 1, 2015, and Feb. 3 discussing either Medicaid expansion or the Primary Care Access Program.

Who we asked: Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s office, on Feb. 3.

What happened next: Otter’s office asked for the 10-day extension allowed under law. I received the correspondence Feb. 17.

What we got: Three PDF files worth of emails, the shortest being 45 pages and the longest being 163.

What you could learn: The 163-page file mostly consisted of drafts and discussion of the PCAP proposal, revealing some of the discussion of PCAP funding options and interactions between the governor’s office, the Department of Health and Welfare and the Community Health Center Network of Idaho in putting the plan together, preparing for its public rollout and asking questions about it.

Then, there was a 112-page file of constituent emails, most of them asking the governor to back Medicaid expansion or the hybrid “Healthy Idaho” plan. Some of them were from people telling their stories about struggling with health problems in the “Medicaid gap” and asking for help. A number of them referenced the story of Jenny Steinke, an Idaho Falls woman who fell in the gap and died in 2015 after suffering a severe asthma attack. A few of them were angry — one man wrote that the governor and the GOP leadership were “no better than ISIS” for refusing to expand Medicaid.

“I fought for this nation and the State of Idaho, now I have to question did I do the right thing,” he wrote.

There were also a few emails from Sen. Steve Thayn, R-Emmett, replying to constituents who support Medicaid expansion. Thayne opposes expansion, saying it would drive up health care costs for everyone else and impact health care providers negatively by, he wrote in one email, underpaying them and encouraging them to turn patients away. Thayn said he favors focusing on primary care and on measures to reduce health care costs, saying Idaho should follow the lead of places like Singapore and Japan.

The third file, 45 pages long, was again mostly discussion of PCAP and fact sheets and other documents that were prepared while getting ready to release the details of the program to the public.

Request: Student Test Scores

What we asked for: Eighth-grade math test scores (excluding student names) from the Smarter Balanced Assessment, administered in spring 2015.

Who we asked: Hansen School District.

What happened next: I received a response about two hours after submitting the public records request to Elayne Howell, business manager and board clerk. But it wasn’t from her.

I used my personal email address to send the request, but Superintendent Kristin Beck recognized my name and sent a clarification question to my work email later that morning. She asked how I’d like to receive the information and whether email was OK.

Beck also asked whether providing each student’s gender, race, scale score and achievement level would satisfy the request. I replied saying it would, and I received the records about 20 minutes later. The entire process concluded within 2 1/2 hours.

What we got: The information came in an Excel spreadsheet with columns for gender, race/ethnicity, grade, school, mathematics scale score and mathematics achievement level. The document also includes an explanation of the achievement levels — which scores fall into which levels.

What you could learn: Of the 30 eighth-graders in Hansen last year, only nine met or exceeded standards in math. That’s 30 percent — below the state average of 37 percent.

Top performers include boys and girls, as well as white and Hispanic/Latino students.

Eight students received a “1” — the lowest possible ranking.

Request: Farm Service Agency Minutes

What we asked for: The Farm Service Agency’s Cassia County Committee regular and executive meeting minutes during April and May 2015.

A county committee, or COC, is a three- to five-person board that reviews county office operations and makes program decisions. Board members are elected by other eligible farmers.

Who we asked: I emailed Cary Curtis, Cassia County executive director of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency in Burley.

What happened next: Curtis replied by email three business days later with standardized answers. In the first paragraph, the FSA acknowledged receiving the request and assigned it a control number. In the next, the FSA said it processes requests on a “first-in, first-out” basis.

His reply went on: “FSA as a Federal Government Agency must adhere to the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552. Accordingly, FSA has 20 working days to respond to a FOIA request. State Public Records Acts do not apply to requests made to FSA. USDA FOIA regulations can be found in 7 CFR Part 1 Subpart A and FSA specific FOIA regulations can be found in 7 CFR Part 798.”

What we got: Curtis attached two documents — a total of 23 pages — including the minutes of the May 2015 regular and executive meetings. No meetings were held in April 2015.

“With respect to these pages, we are releasing 5 pages in full and releasing 18 pages in-part. We are withholding some of the information on the 18 pages in-part pursuant to Exemption 6 of [5 U.S.C. 552 (b)(6)]” he wrote, explaining why the names of individuals discussed at the executive meeting had been blacked out with a marker.

A lengthy clarification followed, saying the agency “is required to perform a ‘balancing test,’ weighing the individual’s right to privacy against the public’s right to disclosure.”

What you could learn: The COC regular meeting minutes detail when and where the meeting was held, who attended and the subjects of discussion. Only subjects open to the public are discussed in the regular meeting, such as ongoing drought conditions and how the conditions might affect crops and pastures in the county.

The minutes also show when the committee adjourned the regular session and went into executive session without explanation. Afterward, the committee reconvened into regular session.

The minutes of the executive session also detail when and where the meeting was held, who attended and the subjects of discussion — mainly farm programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program, Margin Protection Program and Emergency Conservation Program. The minutes then list the individual contracts that were discussed, but individual names are redacted for privacy.

According to Kent Willett at Oregon’s Farm Service Agency FOIA service center, the USDA can release either the name of the individual and the amount of money received or the details of that person’s project, but not both. Willett advised calling the FSA first before requesting information to discuss which information is appropriate.

Credit line: From the Twin Falls Times-News

Editorial from The Spokesman-Review

The possible ways terrorists could strike inside our country are innumerable, so trying to shut off every avenue can lead to a closed society.

Some preventive measures make sense: scans at airports, more questions at borders, increased security at public events.

But some are self-serving moves that benefit particular interests over the general public. Last week, the Idaho House of Representatives passed an exemption to public records law that falls into this category.

The bill proposed by the Idaho Consumer-Owned Utilities Association would exempt records of “critical infrastructure” in an effort to thwart terrorism.

One of the sponsors, Rep. Don Cheatham, R-Post Falls, raised the specter of cataclysmic attacks as he implored his colleagues to pass the bill.

“It’s much easier to handle this matter now … rather than having Idaho citizens, Idaho’s Legislature, having to deal with an incident of such magnitude involving massive recovery efforts which could take months or even years to resolve.”

Try as we might, we cannot imagine terrorists filing public records requests before launching these imagined attacks.

The Idaho Public Records Act already grants an exemption for buildings controlled by public agencies, but it stipulates that it can be applied “only when the disclosure of such information would jeopardize the safety of persons or the public safety.”

That exemption was carved out after 9/11, and a grand total of zero attacks on such facilities have occurred since.

Some people would take this as evidence that the current law is just fine. However, HB 447 proponents disagree. The bill alters the language to state that an exemption can be invoked if the information “could be used to jeopardize safety.” It also adds “property” as something that could be imperiled.

Fact is, anything could be used in terrorism plots. The only limit is one’s imagination.

In addition, the bill broadens the definition of “critical infrastructure.” So broad it could apply to a municipal water system, meaning records potentially could be off-limits if an Idaho town were to have its water supply tainted like it was in Flint, Michigan.

It was investigative reporting that revealed the extent of that catastrophe.

This bill isn’t the first instance of a terrorist bogeyman being touted to shut down records that are of interest to the public. For example, rail companies not wanting to release information on oil trains have invoked the possibility of terrorism.

The Senate is expected to take up this legislation this week, and we hope those lawmakers ask a simple question: Is there a specific problem, as opposed to an imagined one, that this bill addresses?

To repeat, there have been no attacks since the initial exemption was carved out. However, this bill would do real damage to public records law.

Editorial from The Spokesman-Review

Editorial from The Spokesman-Review

The Washington and Idaho legislatures could help bolster public trust by passing laws that curb immediate lobbying by former state officials.

Some form of “cooling off” laws are on the books in 31 states, and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is urging the Legislature to pass a bill that was introduced in 2015.

Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, said last year, “Come hell or high water we are going to fix the ‘Friday to Monday’ problem, where someone concludes their public service on a Friday and becomes a formal paid lobbyist on a Monday morning,”

It didn’t happen, and it didn’t take an apocalyptic event to block it. Just lawmakers who didn’t feel it was important enough.

Though Ferguson has renewed his call for legislation, we fear the urgency to act will wane as the New York Times investigation that sparked interest fades into history.

In 2014, the Times found that attorneys general were the targets of aggressive lobbying from companies hoping to tamp down government investigations into possible illegal business practices.

Attorneys generals would gather at exclusive resorts and interact with corporate lobbyists in relaxed settings. Sailing one day. Perhaps, golf the next. Emails obtained by the Times showed this access often paid off.

Months after departing as attorney general, Rob McKenna and his former top deputy began contacting Ferguson (his successor) on behalf of T-Mobile and Microsoft. Ferguson told the Seattle Times he didn’t dole out special treatment, but he acknowledged that the question of who has access to government was a legitimate public concern.

Hence, the bill that would target the appearance of impropriety.

Under HB 1136, top officials and top aides who become lobbyists would have to wait a year before using their connections to woo their former agencies. In addition, they would have to notify the state of their new job if it involves state business.

This would lessen the temptation to jump to the other side during disputes, and limit the appearance of insider deal-making.

Idaho has no pending “revolving door” legislation. In fact, its ethics laws are among the weakest in the nation. The state still doesn’t require its elected officials to provide detailed financial disclosures, which makes it more difficult to spotlight conflicts of interest.

Because Idaho is ruled by one party, it’s easier for its leaders to drop a veil over its activities. But opaque governing leads to more scandals in contracting and outsourcing. The public becomes more cynical, which makes it more difficult for honest brokers to achieve worthwhile goals.

The suspicion of dark dealing gnaws away at government. Slow the revolving door between public and private service, and voters will not have to wonder who will be working for them one day, and corporate patrons the next.

Editorial from The Spokesman-Review

From the Idaho Statesman

To hear Gregory Ferch tell it, the meeting was a moment of clarity. He discovered what he didn’t know. What he couldn’t know. Because the law would not let him.

Ferch, a Boise chiropractor, had received notice from Regence BlueShield of Idaho that the health insurance company was cutting back its payments for “adjustments” — his most common procedure — to 1990s levels.

Ferch and a handful of fellow chiropractors met with the medical director for Regence. Ferch asked whether the medical director’s salary was the same as it had been in the 1990s. The room went silent, Ferch says, and he decided to track down exactly how much Regence paid its leadership.

I’m a capitalist, and I think people should be paid, and be paid well, if they’re doing a good job. So I don’t begrudge the executives for being paid right, but what I don’t like is them being paid bonuses on the backs of other people. Gregory Ferch, Boise chiropractor

But Ferch learned that health insurers in Idaho do not have to follow the same rules as nonprofit health organizations such as the St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus systems, or for-profit publicly held health insurers such as Aetna.

When Regence and Blue Cross of Idaho say they are nonprofit, they do not mean they are the kind of federally tax-exempt charities most people think of as nonprofits. They are mutual insurance companies beholden to policyholders instead of profit-seeking shareholders.

Unlike nonprofit hospitals, Idaho’s nonprofit insurers pay taxes on property, and they are not exempt from federal taxes. They also do not have to take all customers regardless of ability to pay.

But, like charitable nonprofits, they get a large share of their money directly or indirectly from government support. And they get what can amount to a large tax break: paying premium taxes of 1.5 percent instead of any other state or local tax except for property. (The premium tax is not a guaranteed break: If the insurer loses money, it still must pay premium taxes.)

In Idaho, mutual insurance companies also differ from federal tax-exempt nonprofits in that they do not tell the public what they pay their leaders. Idaho law forbids regulators from divulging that information.

The companies file reports to the Idaho Department of Insurance each year showing what they pay their top executives and board members. The department has denied the Idaho Statesman’s request for the documents each year for at least three years, saying they are specifically exempted from public records laws — and have been for decades.

But most of Idaho’s neighboring states do release those forms. So any member of the public can find out what CEOs make at four of the five insurance companies that sell policies on the Your Health Idaho exchange. Blue Cross of Idaho — the only Idaho-based insurer on the exchange, the largest insurer in the state, and the company Idaho pays to manage its government-employee health benefits — is the lone exception.

Health insurer executive and board of directors pay is a public record in Montana, Oregon, Utah and Washington. It is not a public record in Nevada or Wyoming, according to the states’ insurance regulators.

Those four Idaho exchange insurers paid as much as $760,000 in salaries and bonuses to CEOs in 2014. Most did not pay board members. Disclosures have not yet been filed for 2015.

In neighboring states, insurance companies paid CEOs up to $2.1 million and board members up to $122,000 in 2014.

If the insurance form was public in Idaho, it would reveal how much Blue Cross of Idaho and Regence BlueShield of Idaho paid their top executives and board members in recent years. Current board members include hospital CEOs, physicians and executives in charge of some of Idaho’s largest employers.

Blue Cross and Regence BlueShield declined to voluntarily give the Idaho Statesman copies of their forms.

“As a private, not-for-profit, taxpaying company, we do not share salaries or our compensation ranges for any employees or advisers,” said Josh Jordan, a spokesman for Blue Cross of Idaho.

Regence and its sister company that sells on Idaho’s exchange, BridgeSpan, pays its employees and executives compensation that “is rigorously reviewed and market appropriate,” said spokesman Lou Riepl. “Any incentive compensation is based on performance to ensure we’re achieving our mission of providing high-quality, cost-effective care for our members.”

But he said the company would not release compensation records.

“For market competitiveness reasons and out of respect for the privacy rights of our employees — as well as our executives and board members — we keep compensation information confidential,” he said.

TRANSPARENCY THE GOAL

Some lawmakers over the years have made attempts to pry open that information in Idaho.

Advocates say the companies should be accountable for how they spend policyholders’ money. They also point to other taxpayer-supported sectors where paychecks are a public record, such as government. Idaho’s largest nonprofit hospitals and its publicly traded companies each year file public reports showing what they pay top executives and employees.

Shortly after Ferch learned of the public records exemption, he reached out to state Rep. Thomas Dayley, a Republican. Ferch had an ax to grind, but his complaint still resonated with Dayley.

“It’s not necessarily that it’s right or wrong what they’re doing; it’s just that it’s useful to have that information available to the public,” Dayley told the Statesman. “If they want it, they can go and look at it. … It fits the scenario of transparency that most people like.”

Dayley, then in his first two-year term representing Southwest Boise and part of Meridian, introduced legislation in 2014 to make compensation records available to everyone. It survived a committee vote but died after that.

This legislation would delete the confidentiality language … and thus make available to the public the information regarding compensation of officers, directors, trustees and employees of any health carrier offering policies … on the Idaho Health Insurance Exchange or any nonprofit health carrier. Legislation introduced in 2014 by state Rep. Thomas Dayley, R-Boise

“It didn’t get an overwhelmingly positive response,” Dayley said, noting that he did not market the bill aggressively to colleagues in the Legislature. “As a matter of fact, it was printed with only one vote — it was a one-vote margin.”

He was not the first to pitch the idea. Former Sen. Charles Coiner, a Twin Falls Republican, introduced a similar bill in 2009. Coiner told the Statesman that he, too, had not pushed the bill as hard as he should have.

The lack of disclosure “doesn’t seem fair to me,” Coiner said.

He also questioned whether nonprofit insurers merited that status.

“My contention was: If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck,” he said. “If it looks like a for-profit and it acts like a for-profit, then it is a for-profit. Then the question becomes: For whose profit? We should know.”

Why did Blue Cross need to raise rates every year when their carry-overs and reserves grow every year? Former state Sen. Charles Coiner, R-Twin Falls

Dayley has not decided whether to reintroduce a bill in this session, but he has heard from people who support the idea.

One supporter is Steve Ackerman, a professor of economics at the College of Western Idaho.

“The goal is not to reveal the salary. The goal is to demonstrate whether the salary brings the value it should,” Ackerman said. “(We need) some kind of disclosure.”

DISCLOSURE CAN PROMPT ACTION

Idaho’s insurance regulators cannot limit executive compensation. The federal Affordable Care Act introduced a cap on administrative overhead but not on salaries and bonuses.

In states where compensation is a public record, critics have accused insurers of overpaying their CEOs.

The parent company of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana was sued in 2014 over allegations of hoarding profits and overpaying its executives.

The Boston Globe reported that former Liberty Mutual CEO Ted Kelly had been paid $200 million over four years, based on the same types of disclosures that are sealed from the public in Idaho.

After the Globe’s investigation, Kelly stepped down as chairman in 2013, and the Massachusetts insurance department launched a wide-ranging review of how insurers paid their executives, among other changes.

PUBLIC RECORDS EXCEPTION

In the mid-1990s, the health insurance industry was going through changes, and Idaho revamped its statutes. Then-state Sen. Dean Cameron, a Rupert Republican who owned an insurance agency, was involved in that process. He helped cement the exemption in Idaho’s law books.

Blue Cross of Idaho backed legislation then to convert its legal status to what it is now — a “mutual insurance company.” The Legislature in 1995 approved that change.

Cameron was the floor sponsor for legislation in 1996 that, he recalls, simply made a technical correction by carrying over a law that already made secret any documents about what insurance companies paid top leaders.

While the House Business Committee was considering that legislation and others related to the legal conversion, a representative of Regence BlueShield of Idaho “thanked the Idaho Legislature for helping to create and foster a positive business environment in the state and for promoting a collaborative relationship between government and industry,” according to minutes from the January 1996 committee meeting.

Now that he is director of the state’s Insurance Department, Cameron told the Statesman that he cannot offer opinions about whether compensation should be a public record.

Coiner, the former senator, is happy to offer his.

“If you’re holding yourself out as a nonprofit, there should be daylight and clarity on how you’re operating,” Coiner said. “It bothered me that Blue Cross — I have no idea what they were paying their board, I have no idea what they were paying their executives. … We shouldn’t have these little enclaves of special privileges for certain nonprofits. It should be a level playing field for all nonprofits.”

From the Idaho Statesman

From the Twin Falls Times-News

BURLEY | A Cassia County judge has ordered two special prosecutors to be appointed in the case of a joint law enforcement committee over allegations it violated state open-government laws.

The law enforcement committee was a panel of citizens appointed by the city and county to study the police services contract after negotiations between the two government entities broke down. The committee also developed a cost model for the controversial contract between Burley and the county.

The Times-News called for the investigation after obtaining the committee members’ emails through a public records request. The newspaper found evidence the committee violated the state’s open records laws, which require public bodies to operate with transparency.

Cassia County District Judge Michael Crabtree signed an order Thursday morning appointing deputy attorneys general Steven Olsen and Carl Withroe to investigate open meeting law allegations brought by the Times-News.

The order was based on a request Cassia County Prosecutor Doug Abenroth made asking that special prosecutors be appointed because of a conflict of interest.

Emails obtained by the newspaper show the committee colluded to keep information from the public if media was present at the committee meetings.

Committee chairman Bill Parsons said he was trying to keep the report out of the hands of Jay Lenkersdorfer, co-owner of the Weekly Mailer and a candidate for Burley City Council. His email continued: “Linkensdorf (referring to Lenkersdorfer) is moving around and I do not want him to have any information until we present to both bodies. We will not turn on computer until we see who is there.”

Emails received in the public records request showed a pattern of similar behavior by Parsons.

The emails also revealed that the committee may have held an illegal meeting in February at Parsons’ office, which was never publicized.

At least one member of the committee, Robert Squire, questioned whether the group was violating the law.

The Times-News filed records requests with each committee member on Oct. 24 after Parsons accidentally sent the email advising committee members to lie about their progress on the contract if the media showed up. In a Times-News story about the incident, Parsons took responsibility for sending the email but fell short of apologizing.

The paper reviewed hundreds of pages of emails, which included typical items like plans on what the committee would have for lunch and who would present information to the committee. But the review also turned up emails detailing how information would be withheld from the public if media were present.

“While we applaud the work of the committee, we’ve reviewed the group’s emails and found evidence it broke the law,” said Times-News Editor Matt Christensen. “It was our obligation to share that evidence with prosecutors, and we’re confident an investigation will serve as a warning to other governments that public business must always be done in the open.”

On Nov. 18, Times-News attorney Benjamin Cluff formally asked Abenroth to investigate and alerted the Attorney General’s Office. The letter asked Abenroth to seek the appointment of a special prosecutor because he serves as the county’s attorney and the joint committee was formed by the county and the city.

“I am currently seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the Times-News’ allegations that the joint law enforcement committee violated Idaho’s open meeting laws,” Abenroth said in a prepared statement in December. “After receiving the Times-News’ letter, I requested the Idaho Attorney General to agree to the appointment as special prosecutor, but the Attorney General’s office declined the appointment.”

Thursday, Abenroth said emailed the Times-News saying the Attorney General’s office reversed their initial decision declining the request.

No hearings have been set in the case.

From the Twin Falls Times-News

From the Twin Falls Times-News

HAILEY – Blaine County school trustees were slated Tuesday night to fix two Idaho Open Meeting Law violations they made while renewing Superintendent GwenCarol Holmes’ contract.

The board received a notice last week from the Blaine County Prosecuting Attorney, said district spokeswoman Heather Crocker.

In a closed session Nov. 17, trustees talked about Holmes’ contract. Then, they moved back into open session to approve a three-year renewal. But the item wasn’t properly listed on the agenda, officials say.

The board planned Tuesday night to withdraw its action, declare it void and vote again on the contract, Crocker said. “It’s certainly the board’s desire to do everything properly.”

Former board member Kathy Baker notified the prosecuting attorney after reading a statement from district leaders in the Idaho Mountain Express saying they didn’t think they made a mistake.

“I felt strongly that they violated Open Meeting Law,” she said. The board didn’t act in a transparent manner, she said, adding that the violations are “very concerning” and unfortunate.

She resigned from the board in July since she moved out of state. But she still follows Blaine County School District meeting agendas and minutes closely.

The agenda for the Nov. 17 meeting states the board was going into closed session to “consider the evaluation, dismissal or disciplining of, or to hear complaints or charges brought against, a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent, or public school student.”

It wasn’t appropriate to discuss a contract during that session, according to the prosecuting attorney. And the second violation was failing to include an item on the agenda about the Holmes’ contract.

At the time, the board received opinions from its attorney and the Idaho School Boards Association that the item was properly noticed, Crocker said.

But the decision to renew Holmes’ contract “seemed rushed and not properly vetted,” Baker said.

Meeting minutes show the board wasn’t planning to conduct the evaluation until January, she said. “I think it’s important the school board does what they tell the public they’re going to do.”

The board went through a four-hour training last year about how to effectively evaluate a superintendent, she said. And they planned to get feedback from employees as an important part of the evaluation process, Baker said, but that hasn’t happened.

Holmes’ new contract was slated to go into effect July 1, 2016 and run through 2019. She’s Idaho’s highest-paid superintendent, Idaho Education News reported, and currently earns a $168,000 salary.

Her contract isn’t the same as previous superintendents, Crocker said, but she couldn’t provide details about the differences.

In September 2013, the school board agreed to buy out former superintendent Lonnie Barber’s contract for $600,000 in cash and benefits. The decision came just six months after renewing his contract.

Officials cited differences in “leadership style” as the reason for his departure. After a search and interview process, Holmes was offered the job in April 2014.

From the Twin Falls Times-News

From Murrow News Service/The Spokesman-Review

When Tom Blanchard wanted to learn more about controversial murals at the University of Idaho, he filed a public records request. The university responded that the records were available.

But first, Blanchard would have to pay a bill: $18,078.11.

“They discouraged me from gaining access to public records, and it worked,” said Blanchard, chairman of the board of trustees for the Idaho State Historical Society and a former history teacher.

Blanchard is not alone in facing daunting fees in order to gain access to public information from the university. From January to October this year, the university received 57 public records requests; 10 of those resulted in fees that ranged from $64 to nearly $90,000.

Idaho’s public records law is more restrictive than Washington’s and the University of Idaho appears to take maximum advantage of the law’s restrictions.

University officials declined interview requests, but sent an email citing when charges can be issued for public records requests.

Among the fees charged:

• $64 to retrieve security camera footage to the student newspaper.
• More than $1,100 to a law student seeking documents for his thesis.
• $1,080 billed to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News for emails regarding an alleged theft at the VandalStore.
• $89,717.80 billed to John Bradbury, a lawyer and retired judge. He submitted a public records request about a client who was a tenured professor in the university’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. The request asked for 10 years’ worth of emails, phone logs and other means of communication between faculty members in the college that mentioned the tenured professor.

“It was a very broad request, but I have to say I was shocked,” Bradbury said.

Public records law seen as a financial barrier

Under Idaho’s Public Records Act, agencies can charge individuals for public records if the request is predicted to be time-consuming – exceeding 100 pages or two hours in labor. But agencies are not required to do so.

In Washington, the law does not allow fees for accessing public records, only for copies of the records.

“Most government agencies have tight budgets,” said Mike Hiestand, legal consultant at the Student Press Law Center, a nonprofit that works with college journalists. Some agencies “are making up for that shortfall by looking at the public records provisions as kind of a money-making thing, and that’s never what they were intended to do.”

Not all requests resulted in fees at the University of Idaho. A reporter with Bloomberg News in New York was provided – without charge – employee contracts and a breakdown of the UI athletic department’s Student Assistance Fund spending. The Idaho Federation of Teachers was able to receive the salaries of specific UI faculty members at no cost. And the university did not charge the Murrow News Service for records on the university’s response to record requests.

But fees can pile up for requests that are deemed time-consuming, and if the university needs an attorney to redact information or if the agency has to sift through archival information, these totals can be significant.

“It becomes a financial barrier,” said Bradbury, the lawyer.

After Bradbury received his initial bill, he narrowed his request twice. The fees were reduced from nearly $90,000 to $12,000 and eventually $4,000.

“I understand there are two sides to these records requests,” Bradbury said. “Anyone can make them and sometimes they take a lot of work.”

In 2011, the Idaho Press Club collaborated with legislators to improve access under the state’s public records law. For the majority of requests, there are little to no fees, said Betsy Russell, president of the Idaho Press Club and a Boise-based reporter for The Spokesman-Review.

Russell has submitted many public records requests in her journalism career, most of which cost less than $50.

“On the other hand, these are very tough times for the newspaper business,” Russell said. “If an agency says, ‘pay $5,000,’ chances are good that the TV station or newspaper can’t afford it.”

This fall, Joshua Babcock, a reporter for The Moscow-Pullman Daily News, requested video footage of an alleged theft by UI football players at the University of Idaho’s VandalStore, as well as emails related to the incident.

The request for the security footage was denied with the university citing a federal law that protects student education records. The request for the emails was granted, but the university said access to the documents would cost $1,080.

“We thought it was far too much,” said Lee Rozen, the newspaper’s managing editor. “We didn’t understand how they’d calculated a fee that high.”

The fee was eventually reduced to $700, but The Moscow-Pullman Daily News did not pay it and did not get the records.

In Washington, a requester can visit agencies to look through documents and narrow their request. UI requires advance payment of the estimated cost before requesters can schedule an inspection.

A chilling effect

When Blanchard, the retired history teacher, heard about controversial murals at the University of Idaho, he wanted to learn more. The murals depict settlers hanging Native Americans.

“I was curious how our university handled things,” Blanchard said. “I think that’s a reasonable thing to look at in terms of a public agency.”

But when he saw the fees for records relating to the murals exceeded $18,000, he dropped the issue.

Justin Kover, a UI law student and a public records specialist, filed a request for documents to use in his law thesis and was told it would cost $1,145.85. He asked to schedule an in-person review of the documents to narrow his request, but was told to pay the fees first. Kover ended up abandoning the request and changing his thesis topic.

Bradbury, the attorney, said he doesn’t mind paying fees for public records, as long as they don’t jeopardize the public’s ability to access information.

“If (the charges) become a barrier, they should be eliminated altogether,” Bradbury said. “And by accessible, I mean to the average citizen, not to Daddy Warbucks.”

The Murrow News Service provides local, regional and statewide stories reported and written by journalism students at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University.

From Murrow News Service/The Spokesman-Review

From the Twin Falls Times-News

BURLEY • Cassia County Commissioners voted Monday to improve government transparency by approving audio recordings of their weekly business meetings.

Commissioners had first balked at taping their meetings, which the county clerk had begun to do after the board was caught violating government transparency laws at least three times in the past year.

But their concerns about added costs were assuaged Monday, and commissioners voted to embed links to the recordings in the minutes of their meetings on the county’s website, www.cassiacounty.org.

The move will help save the clerk time, since he won’t have to provide such detailed meeting minutes to accompany the recordings.

“I like the new format and I like the simplicity and directness to the point,” Commissioner Paul Christensen said.

The commissioners had criticized Clerk Joe Larsen’s minutes, which were 15 or 16 pages long, and the time it took the commissioners to read them.

Last week, the commissioners questioned the costs of storing the files and whether recording the meetings was going over the statutory minimum required. The discussion came after the commissioners admitted to open meeting violations earlier this year.

Larsen, who was out of the country during last week’s meeting, said the storage costs are irrelevant. For $220 he can buy a hard drive that will store 68 years worth of audio minutes.

“My reason for changing up the minutes was for transparency and accountability,” Larsen said.

The clerk said he was producing “voluminous” minutes since last summer because the public had asked him to do it and that he often spent his own time on the weekends performing the task.

Larsen said the minutes by law are an official record and can not ever be destroyed.

“I can’t answer what the lifetime of the recording would be. But what would be the point of destroying records like that?” Larsen said.

“If you are worried about something you said, maybe it was inappropriate to say it in the first place,” Larsen said.

The clerk is required to sign off on the minutes, and the audio provides him with a way to satisfy that statutory obligation. Larsen said he would continue to record the meetings unless the commissioners signed a resolution that forced him to stop.

Christensen questioned whether the storage format could be updated as needed.

“In the 1970s and 1980s floppy discs were popular. Technology changes over 65 years,” Christensen said.

Larsen said the storage can be migrated to other methods of storage and could even be burned to double-sided Blu-ray discs.

“Storage is becoming less and less significant all the time,” he said.

From the Twin Falls Times-News