{"id":225,"date":"2017-08-02T17:18:16","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T17:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/k12transparency.isolon.org\/?p=225"},"modified":"2018-09-09T19:04:35","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T19:04:35","slug":"correspondence-marylands-public-information-act-ombudsman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/k12transparency.isolon.org\/?p=225","title":{"rendered":"Public Information Act Correspondence with Maryland&#8217;s Public Information Act Ombudsman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After MSDE rejected my Public Information Act request for salary-related information, I filed a complaint with Maryland&#8217;s new Public Information Act ombudsman. As I expected, this was a waste of time, as she has no real power and the agencies know this and act accordingly. This correspondence illustrates how Maryland&#8217;s Public Information Act has become a joke when the public requests politically sensitive information that an agency doesn&#8217;t want to disclose.<\/p>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Tuesday, May 2, 2017 5:53 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Cc:<\/strong> PIA.Ombuds &lt;<a href=\"mailto:PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us\">PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> Complaint regarding the Maryland State Department of Education&#8217;s Compliance with the Maryland Public Information Act<\/p>\n<p>Dear Ms. Kershner:<\/p>\n<p>I am submitting a complaint to the Office of the Public Access Ombudsman regarding the Maryland State Department of Education\u2019s response to my March 29, 2017 Public Information Act request, which was the culmination of a series of earlier Public Information Act requests to MSDE.\u00a0 \u00a0The Public Information Act request sought three sets of documents, of which the primary one was the data fields MSDE collects on K12 public school employees.\u00a0 I requested all the data fields in the employee records it collects, excluding those that are exempt from disclosure under the Public Information Act.<\/p>\n<p>MSDE responded by refusing to provide most of the requested fields, including the various salary fields, citing the Public Information Act Manual, \u00a74-333\u2014Licensing Records.<\/p>\n<p>Please assess MSDE\u2019s claims regarding data fields exempt from the Public Information Act.\u00a0 For example, I believe that PIA \u00a74-333 does not in fact cover disclosure of K12 public school staff salary fields and many other related data fields essential for doing salary analysis, including FTEs (essential for calculating weighted salary statistics), dates (essential for measuring the effectiveness of compensation incentives related to deferred compensation), and subjects (essential for measuring the effectiveness of compensation incentives related to hard-to-fill positions).<\/p>\n<p>I am providing you with a link to a <a href=\"http:\/\/k12transparency.isolon.org\/case-studies\/case-study-maryland-state-department-education\">web page<\/a> with supporting backup information, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The relevant Public Information Act correspondence with MSDE. I\u2019ve also copied and pasted this information below.<\/li>\n<li>A table with a) a list of all the data fields in MSDE\u2019s employee record system, b) MSDE\u2019s response to each of the requested fields, and c) the page in MSDE\u2019s Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual&#8211;2013-2014 that describes each field. The fields the PIO provided no data for are marked \u201cN.\u201d I\u2019ve also copied and pasted this information below.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In addition to my primary Public Information Act request for the data fields, I made two secondary requests.<\/p>\n<p>First, a request that MSDE provide any advice Maryland\u2019s Attorney General has provided to it concerning which employee data fields are exempt from the Public Information Act. MSDE provided no such document or acknowledgment of my request. Moreover, it cited a section of the Public Information Act Manual, \u00a74-333\u2014Licensing Records, that it claimed justified it in treating salary data as exempt from disclosure while ignoring the clear and precise citations in the same Manual stating that Maryland\u2019s Office of Attorney General had ruled otherwise on the salary field question.<\/p>\n<p>Second, a request for a clear definition of the salary field.\u00a0 MSDE has previously provided me with a definition of salary, but it was so vague as to essentially leave the definition in the hands of local school districts (called LEAs).\u00a0 For example, my reading of MSDE\u2019s claimed definition is that LEAs are granted the option of deciding which pay codes, FTEs, work-years, and other parameters to include in its definitions of salary and average salary.\u00a0 It is hard for me to imagine that MSDE hasn\u2019t at some point discussed and issued an opinion about how much leeway to grant LEAs in defining salary and average salary.\u00a0 Of course, I don\u2019t know what I don\u2019t know, so it is possible that MSDE has been as careless in defining such a core term as it implicitly claims.\u00a0 The definition of salary provided in the manual (p. 17) is as follows: \u201cReport the portion of the annual salary for each part of the position to the nearest dollar. For staff who have multiple records (one Type I and one or more Type II records), the parts of the salary must add up to the total salary.\u201d The entire definition of average salary MSDE provided to me in the form of advice to LEAs is completely contained within the following sentence: \u201c\u201cPlease do not include fringe benefits, bonuses, etc.\u201d (discussed in my December 8, 2016 correspondence with MSDE).\u00a0 Note in the data table that Record Type was an excluded data field.<\/p>\n<p>Compensation typically covers more than 80% of local K12 public school budgets in Maryland.\u00a0 Clarity about what data citizens and taxpayers are legally entitled to know about those expenditures is of the utmost importance.\u00a0 On the one hand are concerns about privacy.\u00a0 On the other hand is the widespread recognition that transparency is the foundation of democratic accountability.\u00a0 Nor is it enough for democratic accountability if salary data per se is made public, as salary data per se is largely meaningless without accompanying fields, such as FTEs, dates, and subjects, that public officials, the press, and the public rely on for doing salary analyses.<\/p>\n<p>Without clarity about what data fields relating to compensation are exempt under the Maryland Public Information Act, Maryland government officials\u2019 current practice of making arbitrary and capricious decisions about what fields to disclose will persist (e.g., see Snider, J.H.,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/maryland-should-be-truthful-in-reporting-teacher-pay\/2017\/02\/17\/76c67322-f239-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html?utm_term=.35631afba962\">Maryland should be truthful in reporting teacher pay<\/a>,\u00a0<em>Washington Post,\u00a0<\/em>February 17, 2017 and my <a href=\"http:\/\/k12transparency.isolon.org\/\">January 24, 2017 testimony presented to the Maryland State Department of Education\u2019s Board of Education<\/a>). The presumption, in keeping with the spirit of the Public Information Act, should be openness unless there is a clear and precise law stating otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>J.H. Snider, President<br \/>\niSolon.org<\/p>\n<h2>Data Fields MSDE Claims are Exempt from Disclosure under the Public Information Act<\/h2>\n<table width=\"643\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\"><strong>Data Field<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"124\"><strong>Provided by MSDE?*<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"111\"><strong>Page Number**<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Record Type<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">LEA<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">Y<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">School Number<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Unique Statewide Identifier<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Local Employee Number<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Last Name<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">Y<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">First Name<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">Y<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Middle Name<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Generational Suffix<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">BC-Maiden Last Name<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Birth Date<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Gender<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Hispanic\/Latino Ethnicity<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Race Code<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Social Security Number<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Degree<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">Y<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Years of Experience<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">Y<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">11<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Tenure Status<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">11<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Employment Date<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Most Recent Date of LEA Separation<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Cause of Separation<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Contract Months<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Full-Time Equivalency<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Previous Year of Employment<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Where Employed<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">S?<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">State Residence<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Type of Experience<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">S?<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Location<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">Y<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Budget<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Position<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">Y<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Salary<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">17<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Subject X (With X = 1 to 6, treated as separate fields)<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">17<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Targeted Assistance School (TAS) Staff FTE<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">18<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Title I Paraprofessional<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">18<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Title I Qualified Paraprofessional<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">19<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">School Assign X (With X = 0 to 9, treated as separate fields)<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">***<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Location Assign X (With X = 0 to 9, treated as separate fields)<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">***<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Budget Assign X (With X = 0 to 9, treated as separate fields)<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">***<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Position Assign X (With X = 0 to 9, treated as separate fields)<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">***<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">Salary Assign X (With X = 0 to 9, treated as separate fields)<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">***<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"434\">FTE Assign X (With X = 0 to 9, treated as separate fields)<\/td>\n<td width=\"124\">N<\/td>\n<td width=\"111\">***<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>* MSDE\u2019s claim that a given data field is disclosable under the Public Information Act: Y=Yes, N=No, S?=Selectively disclosable? The claim is an implicit claim based on data fields for which MSDE provided data. \u00a0Some data fields (marked S?) had highly selective disclosure. \u00a0The most obvious explanation for this type of\u00a0disclosure\u00a0is that MSDE only selectively enters data for certain fields.<br \/>\n\u201c** As described in Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual\u20132013-2014, Maryland State Department of Education, June 2013.<br \/>\n*** Data fields not described in ** above but included in the employee record system.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Public Information Act correspondence with MSDE<\/h2>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018J.H. Snider\u2019<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong>\u00a0Wednesday, April 26, 2017 11:31 AM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018William Reinhard -MSDE-\u2018 &lt;<a href=\"mailto:william.reinhard@maryland.gov\">william.reinhard@maryland.gov<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Cc:<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018samantha.foley1@maryland.gov\u2019 &lt;<a href=\"mailto:samantha.foley1@maryland.gov\">samantha.foley1@maryland.gov<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong>\u00a0RE: Public Information Act request<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Dear Mr. Reinhard:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Thank you for the USB stick with a fraction of the public information I requested.\u00a0 You claim in your accompanying printed letter that the \u201cSalary information for teachers collected by MSDE is considered licensee information,\u201d by which you presumably meant it is exempt under the Public Information Act.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">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\u2019t be obliged to provide this information under the Public Information Act. General Assembly members were unresponsive to this complaint. The LEA\u2019s leadership also sent an email to thousands of its employees, mentioning me by name and complaining that I had requested this information.\u00a0 But even then, the LEA\u2019s leadership made no assertion that under Maryland law the public wasn\u2019t entitled to see individual-level salary data.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In MSDE\u2019s case, access to this individual-level data is especially important because of MSDE\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">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\u2019t licensed.\u00a0 Most county and state employees also would be exempt, as they, too, aren\u2019t licensed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In short, Public Information Act provision \u00a7 4-333 is not relevant to the salary disclosure question.\u00a0 The relevant opinion of Maryland\u2019s Attorney General, as included in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov\/OpenGov%20Documents\/PIA_manual_print\">Maryland Public Information Act Manual<\/a>\u00a0(page I-5), is:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The term \u201cpublic record\u201d explicitly encompasses the salaries paid to public employees, including bonuses and performance awards.\u00a0 GP \u00a7 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).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The Public Information Act Manual (Appendix E-8) also includes this definition of a \u201cpublic record\u201d:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(2) \u201cPublic record\u201d includes a document that lists the salary of an employee of a unit or an instrumentality of the State or of a political subdivision.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If you believe that the Maryland AG\u2019s 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 \u00a7 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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">4-333.\u00a0 LICENSING RECORDS.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(b) A custodian shall allow inspection of the part of a public record that gives:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(1) the name of the licensee;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(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 \u00a7 20-701 of the State Government Article;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(3) the business telephone number of the licensee;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(4) the educational and occupational background of the licensee;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(5) the professional qualifications of the licensee;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(6) any orders and findings that result from formal disciplinary actions; and<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(7) any evidence that has been provided to the custodian to meet the requirements of a statute as to financial responsibility.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(c) A custodian may allow inspection of other information about a licensee if:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(1) the custodian finds a compelling public purpose; and<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(2) the rules or regulations of the official custodian allow the inspection.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(d) Except as otherwise provided by this section or other law, a custodian shall allow inspection by the person in interest.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">(e) A custodian who sells lists of licensees shall omit from the lists the name of any licensee, on written request of the licensee.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Please note, too, that in my Public Information Act request I requested all employee record data specified in MSDE\u2019s Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual that wasn\u2019t exempt under the Public Information Act.\u00a0 Specifically, I specified: \u201cThe data fields for confidential information should be included in the header but left blank for the individual employee data records.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">It is already long past the 30-day limit specified under the Public Information Act for fulfilling my Public Information Act request. I\u2019d welcome your prioritizing the fulfillment of my overdue Public Information Act request.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">J.H. Snider, President<br \/>\niSolon.org<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0William Reinhard -MSDE- [<a href=\"mailto:william.reinhard@maryland.gov\">mailto:william.reinhard@maryland.gov<\/a>]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong>\u00a0Thursday, April 20, 2017 12:13 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018J.H. Snider\u2019<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong>\u00a0Follow-up on your PIA<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Good Afternoon Mr. Snider-<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We\u2019ve completed work on your most recent PIA.\u00a0 The data files are too large to send via email, so we\u2019ve moved them onto a flash drive.\u00a0 Please let me know the best physical address to send this to.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Bill Reinhard<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0J.H. Snider<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong>\u00a0Wednesday, April 12, 2017 3:44 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018William Reinhard -MSDE-\u2018 &lt;<a href=\"mailto:william.reinhard@maryland.gov\">william.reinhard@maryland.gov<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Cc:<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018samantha.foley1@maryland.gov\u2019 &lt;<a href=\"mailto:samantha.foley1@maryland.gov\">samantha.foley1@maryland.gov<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong>\u00a0RE: Public Information Act request<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Dear Mr. Reinhard:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Please update me on your plans for fulfilling my March 29, 2017 Public Information Act request (copied below).\u00a0 Maryland\u2019s Public Information Act specifies a ten-day reply period.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t intend to respond to my request, it would be a courtesy and possibly save you time, too, to tell me so.\u00a0 Meanwhile, I will look forward to your fulfillment of my request within the thirty-day period required by law.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">J.H. Snider, President<br \/>\niSolon.org<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> PIA.Ombuds [<a href=\"mailto:PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us\">mailto:PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us<\/a>]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Wednesday, May 03, 2017 9:25 AM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> \u2018J.H. Snider\u2019<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Complaint regarding the Maryland State Department of Education&#8217;s Compliance with the Maryland Public Information Act<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Snyder,<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for your request that the Office of the Public Access Ombudsman assist in resolving a dispute under the Public Information Act. We understand that you are seeking more information about the data on salaries that was not provided by the MD Dept. of Education (MDE). I understand that you have spoken with the Ombudsman regarding this issue and we have received the copies of your request and the agencies response.<\/p>\n<p>With that information, I believe that we will have the documents we need to begin the process. The Ombudsman will review the documents, and will likely touch base with you next week before contacting MDE to ensure that both of you agree to participate in the mediation process.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted emphasize that the Ombuds does not have enforcement authority, her role is to facilitate the resolution of PIA disputes between requestors and governmental agencies subject to the PIA on a voluntary basis.<\/p>\n<p>Again, thank you for contacting the Ombudsman, and feel free to call or email me if you have any questions concerning the above.<\/p>\n<p>Janice Clark<br \/>\nAdministrative Officer<br \/>\nOffice of the Attorney General<br \/>\nPublic Access Unit<br \/>\n410-576-7033<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Friday, May 12, 2017 2:01 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Cc:<\/strong> PIA.Ombuds &lt;<a href=\"mailto:PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us\">PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Complaint regarding the Maryland State Department of Education&#8217;s Compliance with the Maryland Public Information Act<\/p>\n<p>Dear Ms. Kershner:<\/p>\n<p>When we briefly spoke, you hoped to get back to me by the end of this week.\u00a0 Please let me know your current tentative timeline for investigating this complaint.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for helping the citizens of Maryland resolve which government employee data fields gathered by the Maryland State Department of Education are exempt from public disclosure under the Maryland Public Information Act.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>J.H. Snider, President<br \/>\niSolon.org<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa [<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Friday, May 12, 2017 2:42 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Complaint regarding the Maryland State Department of Education&#8217;s Compliance with the Maryland Public Information Act<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Snider,<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sorry I was not able to get to your matter this week.\u00a0 In addition to some planned meetings and other commitments that took me out of the office, a family medical matter that came up has put me behind a bit more than expected.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll do my best to get through the materials you sent sufficiently to at least have a follow-up conversation with you sometime next week.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for getting in much with me about your PIA matter.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Lisa Kershner<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Friday, May 19, 2017 9:51 AM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Cc:<\/strong> PIA.Ombuds &lt;<a href=\"mailto:PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us\">PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Complaint regarding the Maryland State Department of Education&#8217;s Compliance with the Maryland Public Information Act<\/p>\n<p>Dear Ms. Kershner<\/p>\n<p>Please let me know your updated tentative timeline for investigating this complaint.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>J.H. Snider, President<\/p>\n<p>iSolon.org<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Friday, May 19, 2017 10:54:17 AM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> J.H. Snider<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Complaint regarding the Maryland State Department of Education&#8217;s Compliance with the Maryland Public Information Act<\/p>\n<p>Jim,<\/p>\n<p>I just tried to reach you by phone and left a v\/m at 202-540\u20140505.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m planning to initiate the discussion w\/MSDE via Bill Reinhard who responded to your request, though I\u2019m expecting that it will be necessary to involve Bill Fields, Assistant Attorney General assigned to MSDE, given the assertion of exemptions.<\/p>\n<p>I would like to touch base with you before speaking with the Bills, and am in today and available until about 3:00. I\u2019m also in and available next week.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for checking in,<\/p>\n<p>Lisa Kershner<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa [<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Thursday, May 25, 2017 4:28 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> \u2018J.H. Snider\u2019<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> Follow-Up &#8211; Your PIA Request to MSDE<\/p>\n<p>Jim,<\/p>\n<p>This is to let you know that I called and emailed Bill Fields, the Assistant Attorney General assigned to MSDE, \u00a0this week, but so far have not connected with him.<\/p>\n<p>If he doesn\u2019t contact me first, I\u2019ll renew these efforts next week and keep you posted.<\/p>\n<p>I recall you said you might call me tomorrow, and so, I wanted to let you know I\u2019m out of the office tomorrow, but am in and available next week.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Lisa A. Kershner<br \/>\nPublic Access Ombudsman<br \/>\n200 St. Paul Place<br \/>\nBaltimore, MD. 21202<br \/>\nPhone: 410-576-7037<br \/>\nEmail: lkershner@oag.state.md.us Lisa A. Kershner<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Thursday, May 25, 2017 5:15 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Follow-Up &#8211; Your PIA Request to MSDE<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for the update. If I don\u2019t hear back from you with a response from Bill Fields, I\u2019ll follow up with a call to you midweek next week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Jim<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa [<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Thursday, May 25, 2017 5:27 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Follow-Up &#8211; Your PIA Request to MSDE<\/p>\n<p>Sounds good.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Monday, June 05, 2017 12:14 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;lkershner@oag.state.md.us&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Follow-Up &#8211; Your PIA Request to MSDE<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for returning my calls from last week and letting me know that you\u2019ve set up a call with Bill Fields for this coming Thursday at 1:00 pm.\u00a0 I\u2019ll look forward to hearing your report on the outcome of that call.\u00a0 I hope you\u2019ll get a tentative action plan from Mr. Fields concerning if and when he proposes to provide a field by field breakdown as to which employee compensation fields he contends are public vs. exempt from public disclosure under Maryland\u2019s Public Information Act, along with a legal citation for each claimed exempt field.<\/p>\n<p>Please remember that I\u2019ve been trying to gather the data necessary to understand MSDE\u2019s salary statistics since last fall, although the specific Public Information Act request that led to my complaint to you on May 2 is from March 29&#8211;only several months ago.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Jim<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Friday, June 9, 2017 12:56 AM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Cc:<\/strong> PIA.Ombuds &lt;<a href=\"mailto:PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us\">PIA.Ombuds@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Complaint regarding the Maryland State Department of Education&#8217;s Compliance with the Maryland Public Information Act<\/p>\n<p>Dear Ms. Kershner:<\/p>\n<p>It was good to chat with you this afternoon and learn of Chief Counsel Adam Snyder\u2019s version of the licensing exemption theory presented on behalf of MSDE\u2019s Bill Fields and William Reinhard.\u00a0 I am now summarizing the questions I hoped you would raise with Mr. Snyder regarding his justification of MSDE\u2019s licensing theory:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>During the first four months of my asking for salary related data from MSDE, the licensing exemption theory did not come up and was not included on any MSDE website or document I was pointed to.<\/li>\n<li>The document provided to LEAs to get them to provide MSDE with the salary related data is called\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/k12transparency.isolon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/2013-2014-staff-reporting-manual.pdf\">Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual<\/a> (this document is posted on my website, K12Transparency.info, because MSDE, despite repeated requests from me, failed to provide me with an online link to it). It makes no mention of the licensing theory.\u00a0 Moreover, in its introduction, it explains to the LEAs the reasons it is asking them to fill it out with the following list of purposes:\n<ol style=\"list-style-type: lower-alpha;\">\n<li>monitoring compliance with federal and state laws;<\/li>\n<li>responding to federal reporting requests;<\/li>\n<li>responding to state legislative and State Board of Education data requests;<\/li>\n<li>producing annual statewide staff reports;<\/li>\n<li>providing information to local education agencies and the public;<\/li>\n<li>determining funding allocations by the state and school systems; and<\/li>\n<li>providing information for designing research and staff development plans.I applaud MSDE\u2019s <em>post hoc<\/em> inventiveness in rationalizing its Public Information Act claims using its licensing theory.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li>In its <a href=\"http:\/\/k12transparency.isolon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/2013-2014-staff-reporting-manual.pdf\">Staff Reporting System Specifications and Procedures Manual<\/a>, MSDE further justifies its demand that LEAs provide the salary related data by citing the following code: Sections <a href=\"http:\/\/mgaleg.maryland.gov\/webmga\/frmStatutesText.aspx?article=ged&amp;section=2-205&amp;ext=html&amp;session=2017RS&amp;tab=subject5\">2-205<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/mgaleg.maryland.gov\/webmga\/frmStatutesText.aspx?article=ged&amp;section=5-109&amp;ext=html&amp;session=2017RS&amp;tab=subject5\">5-109<\/a> of the Education Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland.\u00a0 I saw nothing in these two sections that explicitly justified MSDE\u2019s licensing theory, but I did find abundant information to justify other theories based on a strict and common sense textualist reading of the two sections.<\/li>\n<li>Maryland State\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dllr.state.md.us\/license\/\">Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing<\/a> reports that Maryland has 21 licensing boards, commission and programs appointed by the governor.\u00a0 MSDE is not included among those state entities, although I would not dispute that it has an important licensing function.<\/li>\n<li>Of those 21 licensing entities that regulate non-government workers for hundreds of different licensed occupations ranging from cosmetology to cemetary oversight, I am not aware of a single one that collects the type of detailed salary-related data collected by MSDE.\u00a0 Nor am I aware of one that publishes the type of salary related data published by MSDE and widely publicized in public forums.<\/li>\n<li>No one disputes that government workers\u2019 salary and related information is public information under the Public Information Act.\u00a0 I\u2019d suggest that if something looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck and should generally be treated like a duck under conventional legal norms. \u00a0Nor, apparently, is there any dispute that under the Public Information Act an LEA must provide the same information that MSDE claims it doesn\u2019t need to provide when the same information is provided directly to it and which it then compiles across all LEAs and uses in its published statistical reports on a wide variety of subjects having nothing either directly or explicitly to do with licensing.\u00a0 The primary material difference between the LEA and MSDE Public Information Act requests for the same information is the incredible cost and hassle of seeking this information from LEAs and the LEAs\u2019 ease and cost-free track record of intimidating local citizens who request this information.\u00a0 Here I can point you to two of my <em>Washington Post<\/em> op-eds, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/04\/17\/AR2010041702662.html\">Maryland\u2019s fake open government<\/a> and \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/maryland-should-be-truthful-in-reporting-teacher-pay\/2017\/02\/17\/76c67322-f239-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html?utm_term=.35631afba962\">Maryland should be truthful in reporting teacher pay<\/a>, as well as my <a href=\"http:\/\/k12transparency.isolon.org\/\">testimony before MSDE\u2019s Board of Education on January 24, 2017<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Again, if MSDE insists on withholding its salary-related information from the public using its licensing theory, please ask that it provide a clear and precise justification of its extraordinary, non-intuitive, and post hoc rationalization.\u00a0 Regardless of the above, I expect MSDE to respond to the second request\u2014for clear field definitions\u2014in my Public Information Act request.\u00a0 For your convenience, I\u2019ll repeat that request here:<\/p>\n<p>Second, a request for a clear definition of the salary field.\u00a0 MSDE has previously provided me with a definition of salary, but it was so vague as to essentially leave the definition in the hands of local school districts (called LEAs).\u00a0 For example, my reading of MSDE\u2019s claimed definition is that LEAs are granted the option of deciding which pay codes, FTEs, work-years, and other parameters to include in its definitions of salary and average salary.\u00a0 It is hard for me to imagine that MSDE hasn\u2019t at some point discussed and issued an opinion about how much leeway to grant LEAs in defining salary and average salary.\u00a0 Of course, I don\u2019t know what I don\u2019t know, so it is possible that MSDE has been as careless in defining such a core term as it implicitly claims.\u00a0 The definition of salary provided in the manual (p. 17) is as follows: \u201cReport the portion of the annual salary for each part of the position to the nearest dollar. For staff who have multiple records (one Type I and one or more Type II records), the parts of the salary must add up to the total salary.\u201d The entire definition of average salary MSDE provided to me in the form of advice to LEAs is completely contained within the following sentence: \u201c\u201cPlease do not include fringe benefits, bonuses, etc.\u201d (discussed in my December 8, 2016 correspondence with MSDE).\u00a0 Note in the data table that Record Type was an excluded data field.<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to your update after you\u2019ve spoken again to Mr. Snyder.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>J.H. Snider, President<br \/>\niSolon.org<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa [mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Friday, June 09, 2017 8:42 AM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider &#8216;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Complaint regarding the Maryland State Department of Education&#8217;s Compliance with the Maryland Public Information Act<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for the follow up thoughts Jim.\u00a0\u00a0 I <em>may<\/em> cut and paste from this in communicating with Bill Fields.\u00a0 Meanwhile, a few clarification, in light of your note below:\u00a0 1) Bill Field merely said that he had conferred with Principal Counsel to MSDE, and that one or both of them likewise conferred with Adam Snider, Chief of the Opinions Section of the OAG \u00a0regarding MSDE\u2019s assertion of the licensing exemption in response to your request; 2) I will be in touch with Bill Fields in follow-up of my conversation with him yesterday, but have no present plan to bring Adam Snyder into the mediation process.<\/p>\n<p>It may turn out that Bill will choose to revisit relevant questions \u00a0with Principal Counsel and\/or Adam Snyder, and if it seems likely to move the ball forward, I may suggest to Bill that we bring PC or AS into the conversation.\u00a0\u00a0 I have no intention of doing so at this juncture, and have not formed any judgment as to whether doing so \u00a0at a later point is likely to be helpful.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It remains a tool in the toolkit and a possible option for consideration and discussion.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not trying to split hairs with you, but given the importance of clarity in this process, I did want to clarify these points so there is no confusion or misunderstanding at a later juncture.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks again for taking the time to speak with me, and for your follow-up below.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> William Reinhard -MSDE- [mailto:william.reinhard@maryland.gov]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Tuesday, June 27, 2017 5:24 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> Addendum to MSDE&#8217;s PIA Response<\/p>\n<p>Dear Mr. Snider:<\/p>\n<p>This letter is an addendum to our April 23, 2017 response for your PIA request for certain records held by the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE).<\/p>\n<p>In that response, we responded to your request with some of the information in our custody, identified items for which we do not keep records, and withheld certain information.\u00a0 We withheld some information of licensees and all privileged information.<\/p>\n<p>Under Gen. Prov. \u00a7 4-333(a), a custodian of licensee information is barred from releasing that information unless specifically allowed by law to be released.<\/p>\n<p>Under Gen. Prov. \u00a7 4-333(b), the licensing information that must be released is the licensee\u2019s name, business address, business telephone, educational background, occupational background, professional qualifications, orders and findings from formal disciplinary actions, and information provided to meet the requirements of a statute as to financial responsibility.\u00a0 The information we withheld did not fall within any of these categories.<\/p>\n<p>Under Gen. Prov. \u00a7 4-333(c), a custodian may release information if the custodian finds a compelling public purpose and the custodian\u2019s regulations allow the release.\u00a0 The MSDE has no such regulations for teacher licensing information.<\/p>\n<p>Under Gen. Prov. \u00a7 4-333(d), a custodian must release the information to a \u2018person in interest,\u2019 which is defined in part under \u00a7 4-101(e) as a person that is the subject of a public record.\u00a0 You have not identified yourself as a person in interest as that term is defined, and the MSDE has no information to suggest that you are a person in interest.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the information you requested included home phone numbers and home addresses of government employees.\u00a0 This information was not provided were not provided pursuant to Gen. Prov. \u00a7\u00a7 4-312 and 4-331.\u00a0 Social Security Numbers are also included in these records; these were withheld pursuant to Md. Rule 1-332.1.<\/p>\n<p>Under Gen. Prov. \u00a7 4-301, a custodian shall not release information that is privileged.\u00a0 You requested advice given by the Office of the Attorney General to the MSDE.\u00a0 This is privileged and therefore can not be released.<\/p>\n<p>This letter constitutes a required partial denial of your PIA request.\u00a0 You may seek judicial review of this decision under Gen. Prov. \u00a7 4-362. You also may file a complaint with the Public Access Ombudsman by e-mail at <a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>, by phone at (410) 576-7037, or by mail at the Office of the Maryland Attorney General, 200 St. Paul Place, Baltimore, Maryland 21202.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>William Reinhard<\/p>\n<p>Bill Reinhard<br \/>\nDirector of Communications<br \/>\nMaryland State Dept. of Education<br \/>\n200 W. Baltimore Street<br \/>\nBaltimore, Maryland 21201<br \/>\nwilliam.reinhard@maryland.gov<br \/>\n410-767-0486 (office)<br \/>\n410-241-7108 (cell)<br \/>\nFollow MSDE on Twitter @MdPublicSchools and join us on Facebook at MdPublicSchools<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Tuesday, June 27, 2017 7:44 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> In this email from MSDE&#8217;s chief PIO officer, MSDE appears to be choosing to both reject and ignore my Public Information Act complaint filed via your office<\/p>\n<p>Hi Lisa:<\/p>\n<p>MSDE&#8217;s chief\u00a0PIO officer, after consultations with MSDE&#8217;s\u00a0Bill Fields and the AG&#8217;s\u00a0Adam Snyder, appears to be choosing to both reject and ignore my Public Information Act complaint filed via your office (see email below). \u00a0In classic Maryland PIO fashion regarding public access to politically\u00a0sensitive information, MSDE has also fabricated\u00a0straw man arguments so as to provide political cover to public officials\u00a0and\u00a0confuse any casual observer as to what I actually requested and why MSDE refused to respond to\u00a0that reasonable\u00a0request, including a field-by-field justification why certain salary and salary-related data\u00a0are\u00a0being claimed to be\u00a0exempt from public disclosure.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m assuming here that this response\u00a0is MSDE&#8217;s final response to the complaint I filed via your office. \u00a0If so, it is also\u00a0odd that the PIO officer doesn&#8217;t reference my complaint filed via your office and your various conversations and written correspondence\u00a0with MSDE staff and legal counsel. \u00a0It&#8217;s as if your office is dismissed as utterly irrelevant to the fulfillment of both the spirit and letter of Maryland&#8217;s Public Information Act. \u00a0That would be a bizarre outcome,\u00a0as it would imply that the law&#8217;s intent was to require a\u00a0PIO officer who denies a request to\u00a0alert the denied\u00a0requester in writing\u00a0of the existence of your office. But then, the PIO officer is allowed to\u00a0totally ignore any request from your office&#8211;as though your office didn&#8217;t even exist&#8211;for reasonable\u00a0clarifying information regarding the grounds of the PIO officer&#8217;s denial.<\/p>\n<p>Please let me know if this is also your reading of MSDE&#8217;s response to the complaint I filed via your office.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>J.H. Snider<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Thursday, June 29, 2017 5:56:15 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> J.H. Snider<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: In this email from MSDE&#8217;s chief PIO officer, MSDE appears to be choosing to both reject and ignore my Public Information Act complaint filed via your office<\/p>\n<p>Good afternoon Jim,<\/p>\n<p>After we last spoke, I relayed your comments and request for prompt disposition of your PIA request to Bill Fields.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been out of the office since late Monday (the 26<sup>th<\/sup>)\u00a0 and have not had any further follow up contact with MSDE or its counsel since then.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus, I don\u2019t have any more information than you do about this email correspondence.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not sure what if any further role I can play here, but will be happy to talk with you more about it.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m in the remainder of this week and all next week, except for the 4<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to set a day\/time for a follow-call let me know.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m fairly clear over the next week apart from a few previously scheduled meetings\/conference calls.<\/p>\n<p>Lisa<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> J.H. Snider [<a href=\"mailto:snider@isolon.org\">mailto:snider@isolon.org<\/a>]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Thursday, June 29, 2017 6:13 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> Re: In this email from MSDE&#8217;s chief PIO officer, MSDE appears to be choosing to both reject and ignore my Public Information Act complaint filed via your office<\/p>\n<p>Hi Lisa:<\/p>\n<p>At this point in the process,\u00a0I think the best thing to do is to call Bill Fields and ask if he authorized William Reinhard&#8217;s letter. \u00a0If so, that&#8217;s about as clear a response as I can imagine to your attempts to get MSDE to either fulfill my Public Information Act request or provide a clear and reasonable explanation for rejecting it.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll look forward to finding out how Bill responds.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>J.H. Snider<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Friday, June 30, 2017 11:35 AM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> J.H. Snider<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: In this email from MSDE&#8217;s chief PIO officer, MSDE appears to be choosing to both reject and ignore my Public Information Act complaint filed via your office<\/p>\n<p>Jim,<\/p>\n<p>While I understand your interest in knowing more about counsel\u2019s role regarding the issuance of MSDE\u2019s most recent response, \u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t believe your suggestion will move the discussion forward or facilitate resolution of the PIA dispute.\u00a0 Indeed, in light of the attorney-client privilege, I doubt that counsel can say anything beyond what is in the correspondence.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, you can\/ should consult your own counsel regarding your rights and any other remedies available to you.<\/p>\n<p>At this point though, I believe I\u2019ve exhausted the means available to me as ombudsman to assist the parties in attempting to resolve the dispute.\u00a0 If you would like, I can attempt to resume discussion with counsel as to\u00a0 how the salary-related information you seek falls within the licensing exemption.\u00a0 However, I understood from our last conversation that you did not believe these discussions were progressing satisfactorily, and did not believe they were likely to be productive.\u00a0 As you know, my role as Ombudsman does not allow me to\u00a0 do more than try to facilitate communication and voluntary resolution between the parties.<\/p>\n<p>I remain willing to discuss this with you further on your return if you wish to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Lisa Kershner<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> J.H. Snider<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Friday, June 30, 2017 6:22 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;lkershner@oag.state.md.us&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> Re: In this email from MSDE&#8217;s chief PIO officer, MSDE appears to be choosing to both reject and ignore my Public Information Act complaint filed via your office<\/p>\n<p>Hi Lisa:<\/p>\n<p>Please\u00a0resume discussion with counsel as to how the salary-related information I seek falls within the licensing exemption. \u00a0I look forward to hearing the counsel&#8217;s response.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>J.H. Snider<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa [<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Thursday, July 13, 2017 3:53 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> \u2018J.H. Snider\u2019<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> Salary Data Document Provided by MSD<\/p>\n<p>Jim,<\/p>\n<p>Fyi, This is the link that Bill Fields sent me. <a href=\"http:\/\/archives.marylandpublicschools.org\/MSDE\/divisions\/planningresultstest\/doc\/20162017Staff\/2017_AnalysProSal.pdf\">http:\/\/archives.marylandpublicschools.org\/MSDE\/divisions\/planningresultstest\/doc\/20162017Staff\/2017_AnalysProSal.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I will follow-up with Bill \u00a0as to whether MSDE calculates average salaries from disaggregated data provided by local districts, and also find out when MSDE is able to produce such disaggregated data to you.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m confident that \u00a0Bill understands you are not seeking any personal identifying information about local district employees, but will reiterate this point.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll keep you posted.<\/p>\n<p>Lisa<\/p>\n<p>Lisa A. Kershner<br \/>\nPublic Access Ombudsman<br \/>\n200 St. Paul Place<br \/>\nBaltimore, MD. 21202<br \/>\nPhone: 410-576-7037<br \/>\nEmail: lkershner@oag.state.md.us Lisa A. Kershner<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> \u2018J.H. Snider\u2019<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Thursday, July 13, 2017 4:50 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Salary Data Document Provided by MSDE<\/p>\n<p>Yes, this is the information that MSDE publishes on its website and that lacks the information I have been seeking from MSDE for some nine months now.\u00a0 I\u2019m quite surprised that Bill Fields would send this to you as if he was providing something that hadn\u2019t already been sent me and wasn\u2019t readily available on MSDE\u2019s website.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for reporting in our conversation this afternoon that Mr. Fields confirms that the salary data MSDE collected was not used for any licensing purpose and that William Reinhard\u2019s June 27, 2017 email to me, which didn\u2019t explicitly mention your intermediation efforts or cc: you, was indeed a formal rejection of my complaints and your intermediation efforts regarding MSDE\u2019s fulfillment of my Public Information Act request.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, despite Mr. Fields\u2019 rejection, I welcome the offer he made to you to \u201cvoluntarily\u201d provide me with the disaggregated salary data excluding personally identifiable information such as social security numbers.\u00a0 I don\u2019t understand how such voluntary compliance systems work, which is one reason that I\u2019ve asked you to focus your future communications with him on <em>when<\/em> he intends to provide me this disaggregated data in a machine-readable, electronic format; that is, in a format in which I could make my own average salary and other calculations.\u00a0 As we discussed, I\u2019m not looking for a rock-solid date by which he intends to get this information to me; just a good faith estimate such as \u201cby the end of this month.\u201d\u00a0 As for the technical details of making such data available in an electronic format, it should take only a few moments at most using a modern electronic database.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>J.H. Snider<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa [<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Thursday, July 13, 2017 5:23 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> \u2018J.H. Snider\u2019<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Salary Data Document Provided by MSDE<\/p>\n<p>Jim,<\/p>\n<p>I will follow-up on the information as outlined in my below email.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding other matters we discussed, I don\u2019t believe your email below captures the sum and substance of information I provided you concerning the basis of the denial of your PIA under the licensing exemption.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To be clear, Bill Field confirmed that MSDE is withholding certain requested data under the licensing exemption for the reasons and on the basis of the response letter you received from him.\u00a0 While he did indicate that MSDE does not gather salary data as to its licensees (teachers) in order to license those individuals, the basis for asserting the licensing exemption is stated in the\u00a0 agency\u2019s response letter.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, as mentioned during our call today, as things stand now (that is, as of my last conversation with Bill earlier this week), he is looking into what MSDE can actually do in the way of producing salary data stripped of all individual\/personal information to you.<\/p>\n<p>I am out of my office tomorrow, and thus, don\u2019t expect to have the chance to speak with Bill again until sometime next week.\u00a0 I\u2019ll keep you posted, as promised.<\/p>\n<p>Lisa<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> J.H. Snider<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Thursday, July 13, 2017 5:35 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> &#8216;Kershner, Lisa&#8217; &lt;lkershner@oag.state.md.us&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Salary Data Document Provided by MSDE<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t see any difference between my summary and yours in any of the particulars you discuss.<\/p>\n<p>After your conversation with Bill Fields next week, I look forward to learning <em>when<\/em> he intends to provide whatever information he has offered to provide.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa [<a href=\"mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us\">mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us<\/a>]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Wednesday, July 19, 2017 4:03 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8216;J.H. Snider&#8217;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> Update<\/p>\n<p>Quick update: spoke to Bill Fields today about getting you such salary data (stripped of personal information) as MSDE is willing\/able to provide.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t yet know what MSDE will be able to provide, \u00a0\u00a0how much time would be entailed or whether there would be any associated costs\/fees.\u00a0\u00a0 He has promised to let me know as soon as he has this information.\u00a0 I will keep you posted.<\/p>\n<p>Lisa A. Kershner<br \/>\nPublic Access Ombudsman<br \/>\n200 St. Paul Place<br \/>\nBaltimore, MD. 21202<br \/>\nPhone: 410-576-7037<br \/>\nEmail: lkershner@oag.state.md.us Lisa A. Kershner<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> J.H. Snider<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Wednesday, July 19, 2017 4:14 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;lkershner@oag.state.md.us&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> RE: Update<\/p>\n<p>Thanks.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 1:09 PM, Kershner, Lisa &lt;lkershner@oag.state.md.us&gt; wrote:<\/p>\n<p>Hi Bill,<\/p>\n<p>Any update as to whether\/when MSDE may be able to produce de-identified teacher salary data to Jim? I\u2019d like to be able to give him an update, and hopefully, close this matter.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for your help,<\/p>\n<p>Lisa<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> William Fields -MSDE- [mailto:william.fields1@maryland.gov]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Wednesday, August 2, 2017 3:58 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa &lt;lkershner@oag.state.md.us&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> Re: Jim Snider PIA Request<\/p>\n<p>Lisa &#8211; see attached.<\/p>\n<p>[What was attached was a heavily redacted file with salaries, which is posted under the &#8220;database&#8221; link under the MSDE case study.]<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>From:<\/strong> Kershner, Lisa [mailto:lkershner@oag.state.md.us]<br \/>\n<strong>Sent:<\/strong> Wednesday, August 02, 2017 4:41 PM<br \/>\n<strong>To:<\/strong> J.H. Snider &lt;snider@isolon.org&gt;<br \/>\n<strong>Subject:<\/strong> FW: Jim Snider PIA Request<\/p>\n<p>Jim,<\/p>\n<p>The attachment was just provided to me by Bill Fields.\u00a0 In my understanding that it contains the de-identified teacher salary data discussed during this mediation.<\/p>\n<p>While I realize this is not the entirety of the data you requested, I believe I have exhausted the avenues for discussion with MSDE and hope this will be of some use to you.\u00a0 \u00a0Thanks again for\u00a0 the opportunity to work with you on this PIA matter.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Lisa<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J.H. Snider\u2019s correspondence with the Maryland State Department of Education from May 2, 2017 to August 2, 2017 concerning MSDE&#8217;s violation of the Public Information Act concerning its reporting of K12 public school salary data, statistics, and statistical methodologies. The Ombudsman has no subpoena or enforcement power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maryland-public-information-act-ombudsman","category-public-information-act-request"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Public Information Act Correspondence with Maryland&#039;s Public Information Act Ombudsman - Maryland&#039;s K12 Public School Compensation Transparency<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Public Information Act Correspondence with Maryland&#039;s Public Information Act Ombudsman - Maryland&#039;s K12 Public School Compensation Transparency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"J.H. 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