Arizona’s public-record laws are not that complicated, and that’s one of their strengths.
Pretty much all the work product and information about the work of government employees belongs to the public.
So it’s amusing to see how complicated government employees have made public records in recent weeks — in one case seemingly out of ignorance and in the other apparently on purpose.
When all the salaries of Pima County employees were accidentally posted online this month, it sent many county workers scurrying to their computers, as my colleague Patrick McNamara recounted in Saturday’s paper. They of course wanted to know if their own information was there, and what their co-workers make. It’s human nature.
The administrator of Pima County Superior Court, Kent Batty, worried aloud that the information subjected employees to possible identity theft or other victimization. Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said the unintended release of the information raised questions of a security breach.
But this information was pure public-record material. It’s something that we in the press or you in the public could request at any time. It’s something we have requested in the past and posted online.
The fields of data included each employee’s name, employee ID number, job title, department, salary, total compensation and overtime.
If you work in the private sector, you can generally expect this information to be confidential. If you work in the public sector, you simply can’t. The hullaballoo over it is a bit mystifying.
Huckelberry told me his main concern was that the database had been made public early and without approval. Fine, but the county’s 7,000 or so employees need to understand this is not some sort of hacking scandal. It’s just public information.
Of course, the honchos at the Arizona Corporation Commission in Phoenix are also having trouble comprehending the concept of public information. In their case, though, the trouble seems to be more deliberate.
The commission has stalled and stalled as a solar-industry affiliated group, the Checks and Balances Project, demanded the content of text messages sent by Commissioner Bob Stump on his commission-issued phone.
As you may recall, the project has discovered that in the run-up to last year’s primary election, Stump exchanged many messages with the leader of a dark-money group, as well as with candidates he and the group supported for the Corporation Commission. The implication was that Stump could have illegally coordinated an independent-expenditure campaign.
The project learned that much by getting a log of Stump’s text messages. But the content of the texts is what they’ve asked for, and under state law it’s not really arguable that it’s a public record.
Stump said he deleted the messages and got rid of the phone, but the commission has a new phone of Stump’s, which may contain the old messages. Still, the commission has not agreed to let an outside expert search the phone for these text messages. Instead, it first asked the Arizona Department of Public Safety, then Phoenix police, to search the phone.
Understandably, both departments looked at the touchy, no-win situation and said, “Sorry, we can’t help!”
Dan Barr, the attorney for the project (and also an attorney whom the Star hires for public-records work) told me the texts could have been downloaded and handed over a month ago. The plaintiffs are willing to pay for an independent expert to go into the Corporation Commission office, examine the phone while the commission staff observes, download the text messages, and give everything to the commission’s attorneys.
“There’s no reason for them to turn down our offer. We pay for it!” Barr told me.
But nothing prevents public officials from complicating what really should be a pretty straightforward exchange when they feel they have something to lose.
Now, Jodi Jerich, the executive director of the commission, has taken steps to ensure the commission won’t run into this particular problem again. She’s looking into buying a system that stores the text messages of commissioners.
What that guarantees is that commissioners will stop using text messages, or at least phones connected to the server, for Corporation Commission business. Complicating public records is something many public officials do well.
