Source: CalAware Today
By Anne Lowe
The Del Mar Union School District refused to release salary information for all its employees in response to a Public Records Act request for weeks, the Del Mar Times reportsuntil repeatedly threatened with litigation.
NakedGovernment.org co-founder Michael Robertson requested names, titles and salaries for employees of 50 school districts across the nation. The Del Mar district refused to cooperate fully with the request, stating that it would not disclose salary information for employees making less than $100,000 per yearto protect their privacy rights.
Del Mar finally complied with the request this week when threatened with legal action, after three weeks of resistance.
Scott Mann, DMUSDs assistant superintendent for business services, initially provided only the names, titles and salaries of all employees earning more than $100,000 annually, along with the certificated and classified salary schedules.
Parres objected and wrote to Mann, saying, The documents you provided are general in nature. Other school districts I have contacted provided specific listings as requested with no hesitation. He provided the response from the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado as an example.
Mann wrote back, saying, First of all, lets be clear. I am not rejecting your request as I have fully complied with it. Case law from the courts has held that total compensation under $100,000 for employees shall not be released because of privacy rights of the individual employee. I have complied with your request under the PRA.
Mann said in a follow-up email, The Del Mar USD considers your request fulfilled.
Saying the Del Mar Union School District does not have the right to decide what requests to honor and to what extent, Robertson wrote to DMUSD superintendent Jim Peabody, explaining the impasse and promising to escalate the situation if DMUSD does not fully respond to the multiple Public Records Act requests which have been submitted to Mr. Mann.
After investigating the matter, Peabody wrote back to Robertson, saying, I have asked Scott Mann to produce the title and salary of all employees for you.
This time the DMUSD sent the titles and salaries of each employee, but with the names redacted. Robertson criticized Del Mars reluctance to provide the complete data. He said the Los Angeles Unified School District and the San Diego Unified School District were both asked for the same information, and both cooperated fully with the request, as did most of the 50 school districts that were also asked.
Our request to you was straightforward and unquestionably allowed by law, wrote Robertson to Peabody. I am quite puzzled at the delays and nonresponsiveness by your DMUSD staff to this request.
Robertson told Peabody that he will not stand by and let DMUSD ignore the law and will file a lawsuit to force DMUSD to comply with the laws of our state.
The initial request was made to Del Mar on Oct. 8. On Oct. 28, Robertson received an email letter from attorney Susan Gilmor, of the law firm of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, writing on behalf of the DMUSD. Gilmor defended the districts decision to withhold the information.
We have reviewed the recent cases regarding public disclosure of public employee salaries, which are specific to employees earning $100,000 a year or more, Gilmor wrote. You have asserted your position that you are entitled to all employee names and salaries. Please tell us what case you are relying upon that specifies that employees earning less than $100,000 a year are not exempt from public disclosure by name.
She said the districts position is not to engage in a fight with you. We have a constitutional duty [to] ensure that we do not invade privacy rights. While we understand that the public has a strong interest in monitoring public expenditures, it [is] our duty to follow the law. It is our position that the courts have not ruled that the names and salaries of public employees earning less than $100,000 a year would be subject to disclosure.
Robertson challenged Gilmors interpretation of the $100,000 threshold. Theres no exclusion for [an] employees salary under $100,000, he wrote to her. Citizens do not have a duty to justify why a request is warranted. Rather DMUSD is obligated to follow the law and provide public records. The party seeking to withhold public records bears the burden of demonstrating that an exception applies.
There is nothing in the law or ruling to suggest government employees with $99,999.99 salaries are entitled to a different or greater right of privacy than someone making $100,000 per year or more, he added.
Robertson again threatened legal action if the request was not honored. If DMUSD[s] intention is to use the same privacy excuse to shirk their legally required duties which the courts at the highest level in our state have rejected then they will lose that case and squander taxpayers money, he wrote. DMUSD does not get to decide what is good for people to know.
Robertson said schools commonly complain about not having enough money, but when a citizen places a request to see where the money is going they are stonewalled.
Terry Francke, First Amendment rights attorney and founder of Californians Aware, said Robertsons legal case was strong.
The California Supreme Court decision concluding that public employees salaries are subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act stemmed from a request for the salaries of Oakland city employees earning $100,000 or more, he said in an email. But the court neither expressly nor impliedly limited its public disclosure ruling to salaries in that amount, and almost no public agencies are interpreting it that way.
If sued, Im confident this district would lose, and have to pay the requesters attorney fees.
CalAware is a nonprofit organization specializing in helping the public understand Californias open-meeting Ralph M. Brown Act, the Public Records Act, First Amendment rights and open-access government issues.
Robertson had his attorney contact Gilmor directly and asked him to explain to her that I understand the law and Im intent on making this happen and theres just better things for the school district to worry about.
After speaking with Robertsons attorney, Gilmor wrote the following email to Robertson: Thank you for your response and patience. As I mentioned, my concern was to ensure that a release of names would not subject the district to claims of violating personal privacy rights. I appreciate your input and the time you allowed so that I could make certain that the statutes and laws were interpreted correctly.
Gilmor said the district has been instructed to provide the requested information, all of which was sent to Robertson by Mann on Nov. 1 with the following note: By direction of the Governing Board, the attached PDF file was prepared for your use under the CPRA and contains all information you previously requested. Peabody later clarified that only board president Steven McDowell rather than the full Board of Education met to discuss this issue.
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