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Katy Citizen Watchdog$ |
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We’re Taxpayers. It’s Our Money. |
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Katy Board Changes Mind On Records Law |
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The Katy school board on Monday backed off a plan to propose a law requiring those who want access to public records to first explain why the information's release would benefit the community. Katy officials say they're trying to stymie a flood of what they consider frivolous requests for open records. To that end, the school board intended to ask the Texas Association of School Boards to push for a new law to make information requestors justify themselves. But they canceled the vote just a few hours before the meeting because administrators said they don't want school board members to be criticized as being anti-open government. "I don't want our board to be conflicted and misconstrued and misrepresented as trying to thwart public information," Superintendent Alton Frailey said. "I don't want this on the backs of the Katy board alone. I'm not wanting to carry the water, but I have put the bucket in the well." A draft of Katy's proposed resolution reads: "There is a growing trend where private citizens use provisions of this act to retaliate, harass and hold hostage the public school district when there clearly is no public interest being served." In May, Frailey told the school board that Katy was being terrorized by public information requests. 439 requests A Houston Chronicle review of Katy's open record requests since July 2007 shows that the district has received 439 requests. They range from student directories and police reports to documentation of student academic performance and reference letters from employee files. Some of the requests were related to district finances. A majority of the records were filed by media, parents, community groups, educators and education watchdogs. On Monday, Frailey said the issue isn't as big in Katy as it is in other Texas districts. Some requestors go overboard and bombard districts with open record requests, consuming their staffs with "rabbit hunts and sometimes witch hunts," Frailey said. The 5,600-student Lake Travis district, for instance, received 1,572 requests in the 2006-07 school year, officials said. One resident sent more than 200 requests in a single day. By comparison, the 200,000-student Houston school district fielded 832 requests in the last year. Officials there estimate that it took about 3,000 staff hours to fill the requests. Lake Travis administrators said they would have likely supported Katy's resolution. "We would certainly lend a had in any way we could," Lake Travis spokesman Marco Alvarado said, adding that complying with records requests cost his district about $600,000 in one year. Lake Travis' case prompted the Legislature to pass a law allowing school systems to charge any single requestor who uses more than 36 hours of staff time a year. Lawmakers could also limit the burden on school districts by closing a loophole that prevents agencies from charging for requests that are less than 50 pages, said David Thompson, a partner with Bracewell & Giuliani, a law firm that represents several school districts, including Houston. Digital-age issues In this era of e-mail and digital information, one request can mean that hundreds of people must search their e-mails and print thousands of pages to comply. "What we have to all work on is to honestly recognize what has changed about the nature of information today, compared to a decade ago or when the act was originally passed," Thompson said. Joe Larsen, an attorney with the Texas Freedom of Information Foundation, said that the public doesn't need any more of its rights stripped away. He said he's astounded that Katy wanted residents to justify why they're requesting public information. "This would be another arrow in the arsenal of a government body to defeat the goals of the Public Information Act," he said. "This just sounds like a bad idea all the way around." jennifer.radcliffe@chron.com |
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Jennifer Radcliffe & Helen Eriksen, Houston Chronicle |
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Date: 06/23/2008 |
