From: ‘J.H. Snider’
Sent: Monday, August 6, 2018 9:51 PM
To: ‘Mosier, Bob’ <RMOSIER@AACPS.org>
Subject: RE: Public Information Act Request

Dear Mr. Mosier:

Thank you for providing me this information.  Given that I don’t know what I don’t know, I can only trust that it has been your intent to comply with both the spirit and letter of the Public Information Act.

Now, per my July 9, 2018 Public Information Act request (copied below), please tell me which of the pay codes, if any, you excluded.  And, for any you excluded, please tell me the exemption that justifies that exclusion. I believe that your counsel provided you with a legal opinion about which pay codes you could exclude.

Thank you for getting this exclusion information to me by the end of the day Wednesday, August 8, so that you can reply within the Public Information Act’s 30-day requirement.

Sincerely,

J.H. Snider, Editor
eLighthouse.info


From: Mosier, Bob <RMOSIER@AACPS.org>
Sent: Monday, August 6, 2018 8:51 PM
To: ‘J.H. Snider’
Subject: RE: Public Information Act Request

Dear Mr. Snider:

This communication is in response to your request under the Public Information Act, Annotated Code of Maryland, General Provisions Article (GP) § 4-101, et seq., seeking compensation and other data for Anne Arundel County Public Schools employees.

A document responsive to your request that contains information related to compensation is attached to this email. As detailed in your August 2015 inquiry requesting similar information, information about specific employee leave is part of that employee’s personnel record and not disclosable under § 4-311. Information regarding employee discipline is also part of an employee’s personnel record and no disclosable under § 4-311.

In the event you disagree with any determination regarding this Maryland Public Information Act request, you have the right to seek review or remedy, in accordance with GP §4-1B-01 through §4-1B-04, with Maryland Public Access Ombudsman Lisa Kershner at lkershner@oag.state.md.us, (410) 576-7037, or by mail at the Office of the Attorney General, 200 St. Paul Place, Baltimore, MD 21202. Under GP §4-362, you also have the right to file a complaint in Circuit Court requesting a review of this decision.

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me at 410-222-5312 or by email at rmosier@aacps.org.

Sincerely,

Bob Mosier

Chief Communications Officer

Anne Arundel County Public Schools

Phone: 410-222-5312

Web: www.aacps.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/aacps

Twitter: @AACountySchools

Instagram: AACountySchools


From: ‘J.H. Snider’
Sent: Monday, July 9, 2018 3:54 PM
To: Mosier, Bob <RMOSIER@AACPS.org>
Subject: Public Information Act Request

Dear Mr. Mosier:

Under the Maryland Public Information Act, State Government Article (SG) §§ 10-611, et seq., I request the FY2018 non-exempt compensation information for all AACPS employees, broken down by pay code, in Excel, a machine-readable format. This should include the following fields for FY2018 for each employee broken down by paycode: Employee ID, Last Name, First Name, Middle Name, Title Code, Title Description, Unit #, Work Location, FTE, Total Salary, Pay Code, Pay Category (Pay Code Description), Pay Code Amount, Work Cycle, Grade, Step, Degree, Hire/Seniority Date, and Years Experience.  The total salary field should be included in each record and the information broken down by pay code for each employee.

Last time I made this type of compensation request, you arbitrarily excluded pay codes without either disclosing the excluded pay codes or justifying the claimed exemptions under Maryland’s Public Information Act.  I trust that this time you will both disclose and justify any excluded pay codes.  If you refuse to disclose which pay codes you have excluded (which, of course, would also obviate the need for justifying particular pay code exclusions), please cite the Maryland Public Information Act provision that you claim allows you to do that.  In past years, you did provide all pay codes, but there were a variety of other errors or omissions in what was provided, such as not identifying the FTE figure with the year of the compensation, that rendered the data unusable for analysis purposes.  I thank you for fixing those omissions (aka “mistakes”).

I hope that if this time AACPS does provide all the pay codes, one of the previous omissions that rendered the data useless won’t crop up again.

Please charge me no more than the amount you have charged the Capital or individual AACPS Board of Education members for copying similar records. My estimate is that the per se downloading of the requested records from your multi-million dollar payroll system should take one of your payroll experts no more than a few seconds.  Forwarding them to you as an email attachment should then take only a few more seconds.

Please email me the requested data as an email attachment.

If you deny any part of this request, please cite each specific Public Information Act exemption that justifies your denial of the information. As you know, Maryland law specifies that public employee compensation is public information.

Your fulfillment, in good faith and within the thirty calendar days required by the Public Information Act, would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

J.H. Snider, Editor
eLighthouse.info