Public Records in PA

From the Reading Eagle.

Editorials : Boards still trying to hide open records
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Boards still trying to hide open records

The Issue: A Delaware County judge orders a school district to pay court costs and an attorney’s fee after improperly denying an open-records request.

Our Opinion: If this is any indication, public officials may have a difficult time complying with the new Open Records Act when it goes into effect next year.

One of the reasons Pennsylvania’s outgoing Open Records Act was considered one of the weakest in the nation was that public officials could violate it with impunity knowing there was little likelihood there would be any repercussions.

In most cases when an agency was ruled to have violated the law, it simply had to make available the record it withheld from the public. The instances when fines were imposed or boards were required to pay the court costs and an attorney’s fee for the person requesting the public document were few and far between.

So it is more than a little ironic — but no less satisfying — that a Delaware County Court judge not only ruled that the Radnor School District had to provide former school board member Judy Sherry with the documents she requested but also ordered the district to pay her attorney’s fee of $26,070 and court costs of $2,901.

Judge Robert C. Wright said a salary study prepared by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association clearly was a public record and the school board willfully or with wanton disregard withheld it from Sherry, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Wright ruled that the study directly resulted in increased compensation for four district administrators, making it a public record.

According to the Inquirer, the judge pointed to a comment made by Kathy Fisher, school board president at the time, as one of the reasons he ruled the school board acted willfully or with wanton disregard.

Fisher had said if the board gave Sherry the information she requested, she would ask for more information.

That hardly seems like a reason to deny a resident something that the law says she clearly is entitled to have.

John McMeekin II, current school board president, defended the decision to withhold the study, saying it was prepared for determining labor compensation, the Inquirer reported.

But even the old Open Records Act, which will be replaced by a new one on Jan. 1, indicated that documents used by directors to make a decision should be open to the public.

The school district has asked Wright to reconsider his verdict and his decision to compel the school board to pay court costs and the fee for Sherry’s attorney, but the judge made the right decision. The people have an absolute right to know what their elected representatives are using to make their decisions.

Yet Wright’s decision was unusual. Under the old law, still in effect, all information is presumed to be secret and could be released only if those making requests could prove the documents they were seeking meet the law’s narrow definition of a public record.

The new law reverses that presumption and should eliminate cases such as this one. All information will be considered public unless it falls under specific exemptions, and the burden of proof that the information can be withheld will fall on the official who denies the request.

The new law also establishes an Office of Open Records that will mediate disputes. It has a provision for fines of up to $1,500 per violation, and authorized additional fines of up to $500 for each day an official fails to comply with any court order to produce requested documents.

If the attitude of the members of the Radnor School Board is any indication, public officials in Pennsylvania may have a hard time next year adjusting to the new Open Records Act. But it will be a boon for anyone who wants to know what his elected officials are doing and why.