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California attempts to move transparency along

August 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Would you like to see law requiring all open records information to be available in a searchable format? Kentuckians would certainly benefit from this and SunshineReview.org reports BIPPS.org - Government Transparencythat Californians could soon be.

California is considering legislation that would require all open records data to be made available in an electronic, searchable format such as Excel amidst requests from First Amendment activists.

Why is this important? Access to information is just one aspect of transparency. The usability of the documents is also an important piece of the transparency puzzle. The Bluegrass Institute has encountered hard to use information from countless open records requests (dot matrix financial print-outs and several thousand page PDFs just to name a couple of examples.)

Kentucky’s General Assembly should take note of this step forward for transparency in California. This would be a great step for Kentucky.

Filed Under: Transparency and Accountability Tagged With: , ,

Persistently Low-Achieving Schools improving, but slowly

April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Courier-Journal reports that new audits have been performed for six Jefferson County schools that were part of the first group of 10 schools in Kentucky to be declared “Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.”

The audits, which the Courier obtained through an open records request (Why? The audits are available to all on the Kentucky Department of Education’s web site as of April 20, 2012 [click here]), apparently determine there has been good progress in five of the six schools. However, auditors were not happy with performance at the sixth school, Valley High School. The Courier says that audit claims Valley’s principal Gary Hurt, should not remain in place.

Overall, it sounded encouraging. However, there is a very long way to go in these schools.

I took a look at the school-by-school summary at the end of the Courier’s article. The 2011 test scores listed there were not impressive, especially since they come from the inflated, and now disbanded, CATS Kentucky Core Content Tests in reading and mathematics.

So, I put this table together with the combined reading and math proficiency rate averages from 2010 and 2011 testing for the six schools in question. Progress varies from very good to very little.

More importantly, the 2011 combined reading and mathematics proficiency rates in the majority of these schools remains under 40 percent.

If you look at the Courier’s article, you will learn that in a number of cases the mathematics proficiency rate in these schools remains under 30 percent.

So, the jury is still out on whether the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools program is going to pan out where it counts – better student performance.

Keep in mind, the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools program only runs for three years in a given school. These first cohort schools have already been in the program for two years. That only leaves one more school term for the program to work. There is an awful lot left to accomplish in a very short amount of time.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , ,

Spending transparency in Jessamine County Schools

April 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s a great thing when you can write about how helpful and responsive a public entity has been regarding an open records request. Jessamine County Schools is a great example! The request for fiscal years 2010 and 2011 spending data in an electronic format was acknowledged and filled within three business days.

This chart is from Jessamine County Schools’ open records page on Freedomkentucky.org:


You can download the spending data at the link above.

This commitment to transparency is applauded.

Filed Under: Education, Transparency and Accountability Tagged With: ,

Transparency win: Court slaps Webster County School Board’s violation of open meetings rules

March 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In an important win on a tax recall petition in Webster County, Webster County Circuit Court Judge Rene´ Williams has thrown out a lawsuit from the Webster County Board of Education that attempted to block a properly petitioned school tax recall item from appearing on the ballot.

The judge said that while deliberations about details of such lawsuits can be conducted in closed session to protect client-attorney rights, in the case of a public agency, the actual vote to initiate a suit is a public item and must be conducted in public. The Webster County board failed to comply with this legal requirement.

The judge was also unimpressed with an attempt by the school board to hide the voting of individual members on the decision to sue. The judge said, “By plaintiff’s counsel’s own admission the board tried to conceal their actions from the public.”

How can the public intelligently vote for people if those elected officials hide what they are doing from the same voting public?

How could elected officials try to pull such a stunt?

In any event, it looks like a great day for government transparency. Other governmental organizations around the state need to see what Webster County’s school board did wrong so they don’t get caught making the same mistake.

Learn all the details in this very thorough Journal Enterprise article.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: ,

Transparency: It’s about holding government accountable, not fishing expeditions to harass private businesses

March 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We have written previously about House Bill 496, which would protect companies who do business with the government from being subject to Open Records rules.

The bill filed by Rep. Johnny Bell, D-Glasgow, is a response to an attorney in his district who apparently is using an earlier attorney general’s ruling to harass private companies.

After all, the goal of transparency is about holding government accountable, not fishing expeditions to harass private businesses.

That attorney, John Rogers, apparently was upset by a ruling in September by Attorney General Jack Conway, who ruled that Utility Management Group, which is paid more than $11.6 million a year to manage Pike County’s water and sewer systems, is a public entity under the Open Records Act and must disclose spending information. UMG is appealing the decision in Pike Circuit Court.

The Lexington Herald-Leader’s John Cheves reports that one of the companies that received a “shotgun letter” from Rogers is Hinkle Contracting Co. of Paris, which alleged in a letter to Conway “that Rogers is on behalf of” UMG.

Cheves reports that Buckner Hinkle Jr., who represents Hinkle Contracting, alleged in a recent interview that: “Rogers’ open records requests ‘are intended to goad other contractors to support UMG in the Pike circuit litigation.’”

There are myriad issues here, not the least of which are problems with these agencies that want all of the benefits of public dollars but all of the protection from scrutiny enjoyed by private companies.

UMG is not an entity that sells a few lawnmowers to the local fiscal court. It is a public entity.

When it comes to government doing business with private firms, Cheves reports that Bell noted that “as a rule, open records requests are submitted to the government that gives money to private companies, not to the companies.”

If the House passes the legislation, the Senate needs to be very careful in ensuring that private businesses are protected from harassment by disgruntled lawyers who don’t like the fact that quasi-government entities that employ their services and spend gobs of taxpayer dollars must be held accountable for how that money is spend.

On the other hand, the Senate also needs to ensure that groups like the Kentucky League of Cities and the Kentucky Association of Counties — which are so tightly attached to the government dole that they get taxpayer-funded pensions and health care — absolutely are subject to how, where and why they spend taxpayers’ dollars.

Filed Under: Transparency and Accountability Tagged With: ,

Kentucky’s education commissioner explains the new accountability system

February 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday provides a brief but interesting overview of Kentucky’s new public school assessment and accountability program in this Ledger-Independent article.


What remains to be seen is how well Kentucky’s new assessment and accountability program follows through on reducing the achievement gaps that have continued to plague the state for decades.

To that end, the US Department of Education issued a letter to Commissioner Holliday concerning the state’s recent receipt of a waiver from No Child Left Behind, which is also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This letter concerns how Kentucky’s schools and Local Education Agencies (LEAs), which Kentucky refers to as school districts, will be monitored and expected to improve. That ‘US Ed’ letter, which came from Michael Yudin, Acting Assistant Secretary, says:

“The (US) Department will monitor Kentucky’s use of a combined subgroup to ensure that Kentucky continues to provide transparency with respect to the performance of individual ESEA subgroups and the implementation of Kentucky’s index to ensure that schools and LEAs with continued low subgroup performance are identified for appropriate interventions and supports.”

So, if Kentucky’s new program leaves minority and other special students behind (a major failing in our earlier CATS program), people in Washington say they are going to react.

We will be following the gap issue closely at the Bluegrass Institute, as well. While we see lots of improvement in Kentucky’s new assessment program (including a better, college and career focus in testing), we too are concerned that minority performance may or may not be adequately considered in the final, single school ranking the state’s new program will generate.

In any event, if problems do arise in the achievement gaps area, or if we can’t get access to the data to see if there is a problem, it sounds like the institute will have a lot of company in the corner crying foul.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , ,

Hoping for a transparent and understandable 2012

January 3, 2012 By 1 Comment

Along with the new year comes the hope that the Kentucky General Assembly and other governing bodies around the state will make decisions that can be aligned with the defense of Kentuckian’s personal freedoms.

This year, I would like to see Kentucky’s leaders at all levels (city councils, counties, school districts, state government, etc…) address how user friendly public information is. The availability of information is the most commonly discussed aspect of government transparency. Making the information available is certainly the first step in transparency but equally important is how easily the information can be used and understood. It is important that the information a Kentuckian seeks be provided in a common, effective, and efficient format.

For example, in a 2009 open records request project, the Bluegrass Institute specifically requested electronic copies of financial records from cities and school districts in Kentucky. Far too many of the responses stated that the city or school district did not maintain electronic or digital copies of their financial records. That is simply unacceptable in this era. Instead, these municipalities sent paper copies of their financial records. In some cases, these paper copies were dot matrix printer copies sent in boxes!

Financial records for cities, counties, and school districts must be made available as excel spreadsheets, PDF’s, or other electronic formats. Moving these municipalities and school systems toward electronic/digital records will allow for:

  1. Ease of transfer to concerned citizens, city council  members, and other invested stakeholders.
  2. Information within the documents to be more easily browsed using search functions on computers as opposed to looking through hundreds of printed pages.
  3. Far less expense to taxpayers.

In 2012, lets take the next step in the state’s transparency efforts and make all public information available in a digital format that is cheaper, more efficient, and more useful.

 

Filed Under: Transparency and Accountability, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Transparency is not a battle, it is a war

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The fight for government transparency and accountability is not a single battle, it is a seemingly endless war. It war for information access.

It seems like every day there are efforts to make access to information more difficult. In California, Governor Brown has decided to shut down a state spending transparency site that made access to state financial info easy to find. Even here in Kentucky, there are efforts in ignore state law and charge $.50 per page for requested documents rather than the state mandated limit of $.10/page. These are, without question, efforts to make information more difficult to obtain.

This assault on transparency is not likely to end. Information is power and a faceless bureaucracy is not likely to give that away on their own.Transparency is the first step toward accountability and we certainly need more of that in our commonwealth.

Bluegrass Institute will continue the fight. You can  help!

 

Filed Under: Transparency and Accountability Tagged With: , ,

Open records tip #5: Be organized, keep records

November 28, 2011 By 1 Comment

The old adage “organization is the key to success” is true in a lot of ways. It certainly holds true when conducting open records requests.

TIP #5 – Be organized, keep records

Keeping detailed notes of communications can go a long way toward being effective in your use of open records requests. I tend to use Excel or a comparable program to track information related to requests however, you should use whatever you are most comfortable with. Regardless of what you use to track information, here is a list of items I like to keep track of…

  1. Date sent – This one seems obvious but it is a good idea to take note of the date you sent the request.
  2. Date of response – This becomes important only if an agency is chronically guilty of late responses. As discussed previously, by Kentucky law, agencies have three days from the time they receive the request to respond…which leads us to…
  3. 3 day response ? - I keep a column in my spreadsheet for a simple check mark to denote whether the agency responded in the legally required time frame. I do this as in the course of a couple of years I may send numerous requests to the same agency and I like to keep a history of their responsiveness.
  4. Names – Keeping track of who you correspond with will help down the line if the request gets complicated. For instance, if the request is appealed, there is turnover in the agency you are working with, or if the request is sent around to a few desks before it gets answered, it is always preferable to be able to speak about those you have worked with by name.
  5. Copy letters & emails – Keep copies (electronic or physical) of all correspondance. Never a bad idea to keep extra copies on hand in the event that the something happens to your computer, etc…
Keeping detailed records allows you to better communicate with the agency you are working with but also will help in the event that you need to appeal your request to the state’s Attorney General. A log of communications will go a long way to prove that you conducted your end of the information request appropriately.
Filed Under: Transparency and Accountability Tagged With: , ,

Open records tips

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

Transparency is the first step toward accountability. Open records requests and open government laws are some of the best tools we have in transparency work.

In this series of blogs, I will be sharing lessons learning, tips for success, and general open records knowledge that the Bluegrass Institute has accumulated over the years. After submitting hundreds of requests at a variety of agencies, cities, school districts, etc… we have some knowledge we want to share!

TIP #1 – Know the law!

TIP #2 – Be Specific!

TIP #3 – Know who to contact!

TIP #4 – Three days

TIP #5 – Be organized, keep records

TIP #6 – Be polite!

Sample open records request

Filed Under: Featured_News Tagged With: ,
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