From: ‘J.H. Snider’
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 11:31 AM
To: ‘William Reinhard -MSDE-‘ <william.reinhard@maryland.gov>
Cc: ‘samantha.foley1@maryland.gov’ <samantha.foley1@maryland.gov>
Subject: RE: Public Information Act request
Dear Mr. Reinhard:
Thank you for the USB stick with a fraction of the public information I requested. You claim in your accompanying printed letter that the “Salary information for teachers collected by MSDE is considered licensee information,” by which you presumably meant it is exempt under the Public Information Act. Please cite the specific exemption for salary data. Under Maryland law, raw salary data is public information; that is, not exempt under the Public Information Act.
I recognize that salary information is considered very politically sensitive information in Maryland. But politically sensitive does not mean secret. When I asked for salary data from my LEA, its leadership was furious and complained to Maryland General Assembly members that they shouldn’t be obliged to provide this information under the Public Information Act. General Assembly members were unresponsive to this complaint. The LEA’s leadership also sent an email to thousands of its employees, mentioning me by name and complaining that I had requested this information. But even then, the LEA’s leadership made no assertion that under Maryland law the public wasn’t entitled to see individual-level salary data.
In MSDE’s case, access to this individual-level data is especially important because of MSDE’s track record of publishing methodologically ambiguous, error prone, and unaudited salary statistical data that is widely reported as authoritative and a foundation for public deliberation over the approximately 80% of school budgets allocated to employee compensation.
Since there was no mention that you would withhold salary data until this belated response to my Public Information Act request, it is especially surprising to hear MSDE make this claim now.
If I understand your legal theory correctly, the salaries of licensed teachers would be exempt from disclosure but not the countless other LEA employees, such as custodians, long-term substitutes, coaches, cafeteria workers, and administrative secretaries, whose occupations aren’t licensed. Most county and state employees also would be exempt, as they, too, aren’t licensed.
In short, Public Information Act provision § 4-333 is not relevant to the salary disclosure question. The relevant opinion of Maryland’s Attorney General, as included in Maryland Public Information Act Manual (page I-5), is:
The term “public record” explicitly encompasses the salaries paid to public employees, including bonuses and performance awards. GP § 4-101(j)(2); Moberly v. He rboldsheimer , 276 Md. 211 (1975); Opinion of the Attorney General No. 81-034 (Nov. 23, 1981) (unpublished); 83 Opinions of the Attorney General 192 (1998).
The Public Information Act Manual (Appendix E-8) also includes this definition of a “public record”:
(2) “Public record” includes a document that lists the salary of an employee of a unit or an instrumentality of the State or of a political subdivision.
If you believe that the Maryland AG’s legal opinion is incorrect, please provide an exact citation to the legal authority on which you rely. I am copying below the entire section of the Public Information Act provision § 4-333 that you cited for your exemption claim and which makes no mention of salary data. As a matter of both common sense and legal precedent, it should be clear that disclosures appropriate for, say, licensed cosmetologists and landscape designers, would be less rigorous than those for government employees.
4-333. LICENSING RECORDS.
(a) Subject to subsections (b) through (d) of this section, a custodian shall deny inspection of the part of a public record that contains information about the licensing of an individual in an occupation or a profession.
(b) A custodian shall allow inspection of the part of a public record that gives:
(1) the name of the licensee;
(2) the business address of the licensee or, if the business address is not available, the home address of the licensee after the custodian redacts any information that identifies the location as the home address of an individual with a disability as defined in § 20-701 of the State Government Article;
(3) the business telephone number of the licensee;
(4) the educational and occupational background of the licensee;
(5) the professional qualifications of the licensee;
(6) any orders and findings that result from formal disciplinary actions; and
(7) any evidence that has been provided to the custodian to meet the requirements of a statute as to financial responsibility.
(c) A custodian may allow inspection of other information about a licensee if:
(1) the custodian finds a compelling public purpose; and
(2) the rules or regulations of the official custodian allow the inspection.
(d) Except as otherwise provided by this section or other law, a custodian shall allow inspection by the person in interest.
(e) A custodian who sells lists of licensees shall omit from the lists the name of any licensee, on written request of the licensee.
Please note, too, that in my Public Information Act request I requested all employee record data specified in MSDE’s Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual that wasn’t exempt under the Public Information Act. Specifically, I specified: “The data fields for confidential information should be included in the header but left blank for the individual employee data records.” In your response, you did include the header field labels. But it is hard for me to imagine that not only the salary data fields but many of the other data fields, such as those relating to FTE status, are also legally exempt. Again, if you claim otherwise, please provide the specific legal citation justifying the exemption.
It is already long past the 30-day limit specified under the Public Information Act for fulfilling my Public Information Act request. I’d welcome your prioritizing the fulfillment of my overdue Public Information Act request.
Sincerely,
J.H. Snider, President
iSolon.org
From: William Reinhard -MSDE- [mailto:william.reinhard@maryland.gov]
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2017 12:13 PM
To: ‘J.H. Snider’
Subject: Follow-up on your PIA
Good Afternoon Mr. Snider-
We’ve completed work on your most recent PIA. The data files are too large to send via email, so we’ve moved them onto a flash drive. Please let me know the best physical address to send this to.
Bill Reinhard
From: J.H. Snider
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2017 3:44 PM
To: ‘William Reinhard -MSDE-‘ <william.reinhard@maryland.gov>
Cc: ‘samantha.foley1@maryland.gov’ <samantha.foley1@maryland.gov>
Subject: RE: Public Information Act request
Dear Mr. Reinhard:
Please update me on your plans for fulfilling my March 29, 2017 Public Information Act request (copied below). Maryland’s Public Information Act specifies a ten-day reply period. If you don’t intend to respond to my request, it would be a courtesy and possibly save you time, too, to tell me so. Meanwhile, I will look forward to your fulfillment of my request within the thirty-day period required by law.
Sincerely,
J.H. Snider, President
iSolon.org
From: ‘J.H. Snider’
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2017 2:24 PM
To: William Reinhard -MSDE- <william.reinhard@maryland.gov>
Subject: Public Information Act request
Dear Mr. Reinhard:
You have not responded to my March 15, 2017 response to your March 8, 2017 response to my February 10, 2017 Public Information Act request. To hopefully speed things along, I am recasting part of my March 15, 2017 response as a separate Public Information Act request.
Under the Maryland Public Information Act, State Government Article (SG) §§ 10-611, et seq., I request “a) the employee records, excluding confidential data, for every public employee in every LEA in Maryland State, b) the written advice from the office of Maryland’s Attorney General concerning which data fields contain confidential information, and c) the definition of salary used in the “salary” data field, which may be one of the definitions of salary you have previously provided me. The data should be provided in a single Excel file with a heading field for each data field (i.e., all the employee level data fields you collect from the LEAs, as you listed [in your March 8, 2016 email] below from the detailed manual specifying such fields). The data fields for confidential information should be included in the header but left blank for the individual employee data records. If either the headings or contents of data fields include codes, the description of those codes should be provided separately, such as on a different worksheet within the same Excel file.”
I request that all the information be emailed to me in an electronic format (i.e., no paper copies). I also request that where an electronic document exists in a machine-readable format such as an Excel spreadsheet or Word document, it be provided in that format rather than scanned in an unsearchable format such as a pdf.
If fulfilling this Public Information Act request is expected to take more than 2 hours, then starting with a) and moving to b) and c), each item should be costed out separately in your response to me. In addition, in the unlikely event that any information cannot be provided to me in an electronic format, it should also be costed out separately.
I look forward to your response within the ten days required by law.
Sincerely,
J.H. Snider, President
iSolon.org
From: ‘J.H. Snider’
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 5:59 PM
To: ‘William Reinhard -MSDE-‘
Subject: RE: Follow-up on your PIA Request
Dear Mr. Reinhard:
Thank you for your response. What follows below in indented text is my February 10, 2017 Public Information Act request, including your response on March 8, 2017 (in green) and my response to that today (in purple).
Under the Maryland Public Information Act, State Government Article (SG) §§ 10-611, et seq., I have two follow-up document requests related to your reply to my December 16, 2016 Public Information Act request: 1) The documents related to the salary “audit” request (request #2), and 2) the LEA retention data request (request #6).
1) The audit request:
- I request links to the audits MSDE has done, if any, on the salary data LEAs have provided to MSDE from FY2007 through FY2016. If no audits have been done, please respond “none.”
Reinhard: None.
Snider: It appears that whomever you consulted for your information may have either had incomplete information or a different definition of “audit” than I intended. By audit I meant any written information from MSDE noting that provided LEA salary data were incorrect. On page B-1 of MSDE’s “Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual—2016-2017,” published in June 2016, MSDE reported finding such incorrect salary data on LEA reports to MSDE: “In previous years, common errors were found to be associated with full-time equivalency, type of experience, missing subject codes for teachers, school number, budget code, position code, salary [bold added], and failure to provide separation data for staff who are no longer employed.” Please send me the supporting documents that substantiate this claim of incorrect salary data. Also, I only have a printed copy of the document I have cited. If it is available online for the public to see, please send me a link.
Reinhard: “you asked for a report on errors in salary data. We do not generate reports on errors; rather, data collection is an iterative process in this program. When errors are found, the data is corrected and updated.”
Snider: In my request I clarified that “By audit I meant any written information from MSDE noting that provided LEA salary data were incorrect.” I did not specifically limit my document request to reports. Emails about the incorrect data were also covered.
Reinhard: “you asked about the public nature of the “Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual.” It is designed specifically for local system staff working on the system. It is available to the public on request — we sent you a copy on November 11, 2016.”
Snider: I have correspondence from you dated November 10, 2016, not November 11, 2016. That correspondence includes a single attachment: “Minimum/Maximum/Actual Salaries and Salary Schedules—2016-2017, WDCS LEA User Manual.” It did not include a link or attachment to a document entitled: “Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual—2016-2017.” The document provided also did not include the text I cited. If I am missing correspondence from you dated November 11, 2016, please resend it. Otherwise, please send me an electronic copy, preferably an online link, to the requested document. My apologies in advance if I have missed some relevant correspondence that you sent me. I believe I’ve gone through all our correspondence and haven’t found a citation to that MSDE document, which I located via a non-MSDE source.
2) The LEA data request:
- In Excel or other machine-readable format, I request all teacher retention data, including any accompanying annotations, submitted to MSDE’s Web Data Collection System (WDCS) by the Anne Arundel County LEA from FY2012 to FY2016. It’s my understanding that because this is aggregate data, the files will be tiny.
Reinhard: No current report exists for this information and would require several days to create. As this request is LEA specific, please make inquiry to Anne Arundel County.
Snider: Please explain why it is so difficult for MSDE to provide the machine-readable data on teacher retention/attrition that I requested. If the submitted information is no different from the data that MSDE publishes on its website and that you pointed me to, then this query is moot. But I’m looking for information that would allow me to analyze the data in a meaningful way; specifically, I am interested in teacher attrition both before and after a teacher reaches the so-called “pension cliff.” The pension cliff is the point in a teacher’s career when they are fully vested in their pension benefits. I am looking for information that would allow me to pinpoint when teachers reach the pension cliff (this requires knowing their age and years of creditable service) in relation to the year they left LEA employment. The MSDE website you pointed me to lacked this information.
If I’ve asked for the wrong set of data to analyze the pension cliff, please point me to another set of MSDE attrition data that school administrators use to analyze the impact of the pension cliff on teacher attrition. Any state or local school administrator genuinely interested in retaining teachers would need to analyze this information. Thus, I’ve assumed that MSDE’s retention data—whether it is labeled “retention data” or something else—would include this information. If my assumption is wrong about MSDE collecting this information, please let me know.
Reinhard: “it may be possible for us to provide you with the information you need for your research…. We work with the Maryland Attorney General’s office when responding to requests for database information, and their advice guides our work… Please give us a list of data fields you are interested in acquiring, and we will consider your request.”
Snider: Thank you for offering to provide me with the information I requested and for asking me to clarify which data fields I sought. Specifically, please provide me with a) the employee records, excluding confidential data, for every public employee in every LEA in Maryland State, b) the written advice from the office of Maryland’s Attorney General concerning which data fields contain confidential information, and c) the definition of salary used in the “salary” data field, which may be one of the definitions of salary you have previously provided me. The data should be provided in a single Excel file with a heading field for each data field (i.e., all the employee level data fields you collect from the LEAs, as you listed below from the detailed manual specifying such fields). The data fields for confidential information should be included in the header but left blank for the individual employee data records. If either the headings or contents of data fields include codes, the description of those codes should be provided separately, such as on a different worksheet within the same Excel file. I am thankful for your not instigating a harassment campaign in response to my request for this public salary-related information. When I’ve requested this information from local LEAs in the past, that has not always been the case.
Sincerely,
J.H. Snider, President
iSolon.org
From: ‘William Reinhard -MSDE’
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2017 1:55 PM
To: ‘J.H. Snider’
Subject: Follow-up on your PIA Request
March 8, 2017
Dear Mr. Snider:
We are in receipt of your February 24 request, in search of information regarding Maryland’s teacher salaries.
Your requests have targeted MSDE’s chart, “Salary Range for Ten-Month Teachers in Public Schools, 2014-15, included in the 2014-15 MSDE Fact Book. We have provided you numerous documents and information related to that chart and its related report.
Most recently, you asked for a report on errors in salary data. We do not generate reports on errors; rather, data collection is an iterative process in this program. When errors are found, the data is corrected and updated.
In addition, you have asked for retention data. We do not collect retention data, per se; rather, we collect data on teachers and their years of service which may closely reflect retention.
Finally, you asked about the public nature of the “Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual.” It is designed specifically for local system staff working on the system. It is available to the public on request — we sent you a copy on November 11, 2016.
Your original inquiry was about the “Salary Range” chart, which is developed using the salary schedules made available by local school systems. But your interest seems to be in the actual salary data of Maryland’s public school teachers, particularly those in Anne Arundel County. MSDE collects this information for other research, and it may be of use for you to understand what the Department collects for each educator. This list was already included in the manual provided.
- Local Education Agency
- School
- Local Employee Number
- Last Name
- First Name
- Middle Name
- Generational Suffix
- Maiden Last Name
- Birth Date
- Gender
- Hispanic/Latino Ethnicity
- Race Code
- Social Security Number
- Degree
- Years of Experience
- Tenure Status
- Employment Date
- Most Recent Date of Employee Separation
- Contract Months
- Full-time Equivalency
- Previous Year of Employment
- Where Employed
- State Residence
- Type of Experience
- Location
- Budget
- Position
- Salary
- Certification Subjects
- Targeted Assistance School Staff FTE
- Title I Paraprofessional
- Title I Qualified Paraprofessional
Some of this information (SSN, some personnel data, etc.) is confidential. Other information may also be considered confidential due to privacy concerns. We work with the Maryland Attorney General’s office when responding to requests for database information, and their advice guides our work.
That said, it may be possible for us to provide you with the information you need for your research.
Please give us a list of data fields you are interested in acquiring, and we will consider your request.
Sincerely,
William Reinhard
Public Information Officer
| Bill Reinhard Director of Communications Maryland State Dept. of Education 200 W. Baltimore Street Baltimore, Maryland 21201 william.reinhard@maryland.gov 410-767-0486 (office) 410-241-7108 (cell) Follow MSDE on Twitter @MdPublicSchools and join us on Facebook at MdPublicSchools |
From: ‘William Reinhard -MSDE-‘
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2017 3:24 PM
To: ‘J.H. Snider’
Subject: Re: Public Information Act request
Hello Mr. Snider-
We’ve reviewed your requests, and have no more detailed information to provide. MSDE’s data office does not collect the information that is needed for this level of analysis. Previously, we referred you to the local education agencies, which may have the detailed information you seek.
The Maryland Pension and Retirement System may be a source of information as well.
Sincerely,
William Reinhard
On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 1:33 PM, J.H. Snider wrote:
Dear Mr. Reinhard:
Thank you for your past responses to my Public Information Act requests.
Please update me on your plans for fulfilling my February 10, 2017 Public Information Act request (copied below). Maryland’s Public Information Act specifies a ten-day reply period.
Sincerely,
J.H. Snider, President
iSolon.org
From: ‘J.H. Snider’
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2017 12:03 PM
To: ‘William Reinhard -MSDE-‘
Subject: Public Information Act request
Dear Mr. Reinhard:
Thank you for your past responses to my Public Information Act requests.
Please update me on your plans for fulfilling my February 10, 2017 Public Information Act request (copied below). Maryland’s Public Information Act specifies a ten-day reply period.
Sincerely,
J.H. Snider, President
iSolon.org
From: ‘J.H. Snider’
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2017 12:03 PM
To: ‘William Reinhard -MSDE-‘ <william.reinhard@maryland.gov>
Subject: Public Information Act request
Dear Mr. Reinhard:
Thank you for your January 11, 2017 fulfillment of my December 16, 2016 Public Information Act request.
Under the Maryland Public Information Act, State Government Article (SG) §§ 10-611, et seq.,
I have two follow-up document requests related to your reply to my December 16, 2016 Public Information Act request: 1) The documents related to the salary “audit” request (request #2), and 2) the LEA retention data request (request #6).
1) The audit request:
- I request links to the audits MSDE has done, if any, on the salary data LEAs have provided to MSDE from FY2007 through FY2016. If no audits have been done, please respond “none.”
Reinhard: None.
Snider: It appears that whomever you consulted for your information may have either had incomplete information or a different definition of “audit” than I intended. By audit I meant any written information from MSDE noting that provided LEA salary data were incorrect. On page B-1 of MSDE’s “Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual—2016-2017,” published in June 2016, MSDE reported finding such incorrect salary data on LEA reports to MSDE: “In previous years, common errors were found to be associated with full-time equivalency, type of experience, missing subject codes for teachers, school number, budget code, position code, salary [bold added], and failure to provide separation data for staff who are no longer employed.” Please send me the supporting documents that substantiate this claim of incorrect salary data. Also, I only have a printed copy of the document I have cited. If it is available online for the public to see, please send me a link.
2) The LEA data request:
- In Excel or other machine-readable format, I request all teacher retention data, including any accompanying annotations, submitted to MSDE’s Web Data Collection System (WDCS) by the Anne Arundel County LEA from FY2012 to FY2016. It’s my understanding that because this is aggregate data, the files will be tiny.
Reinhard: No current report exists for this information and would require several days to create. As this request is LEA specific, please make inquiry to Anne Arundel County.
Snider: Please explain why it is so difficult for MSDE to provide the machine-readable data on teacher retention/attrition that I requested. If the submitted information is no different from the data that MSDE publishes on its website and that you pointed me to, then this query is moot. But I’m looking for information that would allow me to analyze the data in a meaningful way; specifically, I am interested in teacher attrition both before and after a teacher reaches the so-called “pension cliff.” The pension cliff is the point in a teacher’s career when they are fully vested in their pension benefits. I am looking for information that would allow me to pinpoint when teachers reach the pension cliff (this requires knowing their age and years of creditable service) in relation to the year they left LEA employment. The MSDE website you pointed me to lacked this information.
If I’ve asked for the wrong set of data to analyze the pension cliff, please point me to another set of MSDE attrition data that school administrators use to analyze the impact of the pension cliff on teacher attrition. Any state or local school administrator genuinely interested in retaining teachers would need to analyze this information. Thus, I’ve assumed that MSDE’s retention data—whether it is labeled “retention data” or something else—would include this information. If my assumption is wrong about MSDE collecting this information, please let me know.
I request that all the information be emailed to me in an electronic format (i.e., no paper copies). I also request that where an electronic document exists in a machine-readable format such as an Excel spreadsheet or Word document, it be provided in that format rather than scanned in an unsearchable format such as a pdf.
If fulfilling this Public Information Act request is expected to take more than 2 hours, then starting with 1) and moving to 2), each item should be costed out separately in your response to me. In addition, in the unlikely event that any information cannot be provided to me in an electronic format, it should also be costed out separately.
I look forward to your response within the ten days required by law.
Sincerely,
J.H. Snider, President
iSolon.org