Houston Airport System: Releasing salary list would make airports vulnerable to terrorists

The government agency that oversees Houston’s two major airports -- and whose boss stepped down suddenly and without explanation last month -- says it does not want to make public a list of how much it pays its employees because the data is “sensitive security information” and its release could endanger passengers’ safety.

The Houston Airport System, which runs both Bush Intercontinental Airport and the smaller William P. Hobby Airport, is arguing that it should be allowed to withhold airport employees’ pay records for 2008, which Texas Watchdog had sought under the Texas Public Information Act.

Federal law says that airports can withhold “[a]ny information that the" federal Transportation Security Administration "has determined may reveal a systemic vulnerability of the aviation system, or a vulnerability of aviation facilities, to attack,” Assistant City Attorney Evelyn W. Njuguna wrote in a letter to state Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office.

That law, Njuguna wrote, says airports "must restrict disclosure of and access to sensitive security information . . . to persons with a need to know and must refer requests” for that information to the feds.

The letter says the federal government could determine that "the release of this information could compromise the measures designed for the security and safety at City's airports for airport personnel, the traveling public, and the citizens of Houston.”

The airport system's concern isn't so much releasing the salary numbers, Njuguna said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "It's not the amount that they make, it's more so the names of the people," she said. "Because TSA has said giving out information about employees who work in the airport or who have access to secured locations could" put airports at risk.

The airport and the city would be willing to release a list of numbers of how much the workers are paid, she said -- but Texas Watchdog countered that a list of dollar amounts without names attached to them would be of little use to the public.

Was open government also a casualty of Sept. 11?

"This was not the type of information that Congress was anticipating when they passed the basic homeland security laws," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the non-profit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press She called it "ludicrous."

Said Keith Elkins, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas: "It appears the information you are requesting will most likely remain undisclosed due to alleged homeland security concerns. It's a reality of the post-9/11 world we live in."

The amount that public employees get paid is generally a public record in most states -- Houston residents can find most city workers' yearly pay amounts through online databases the Houston Chronicle has gleaned under the state public records law; ditto for Texas state employees' pay records.

And not all airports try to shield their employees' pay records from view. Pay records for airport workers in Los Angeles, Chicago and Nashville, just to name a few, are public records and have been posted online by newspapers in those cities (LA Daily News database at this link; Chicago Sun-Times 2007 database here; Nashville database available through The Tennessean, this reporter's former employer). The Los Angeles database doesn't include the names of airport police officers -- just how much they made -- but it does include the names and pay amounts for thousands of other people working at the airport, including clerks, guides, electricians, supply managers and even one "industrial hygienist" -- 3,600 airport employees in all.

Houston Airport System workers' pay has been in the news before. The airport gave away bonuses -- from $300 to $1,000 -- to about 400 workers in 2006, the Chronicle reported. In 2007, a group of airport janitors complained to the city council about an airport plan to rework their positions from three 8-hour shifts into two 10-hour shifts; the airport said it was just trying to be more efficient.

This also isn't the first time that the city has tried to withhold records sought by Texas Watchdog. Mayor Bill White earlier this year sought to withhold portions of his calendar after Texas Watchdog requested it and e-mails between himself, his staff and developer Marvy Finger. The AG ruled in April that most of the information had to be released, but White could withhold information not pertaining to his official role as mayor.

The city also initially tried to black out city councilmembers' addresses and names of their family members from copies of the personal financial statements the council filed earlier this year. Texas Watchdog challenged the redactions, and the city now says it will make the forms available with no information blacked out.

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Photo of planes queuing for take off at Bush Intercontinental Airport by flickr user mpd01615, used via the Creative Commons license.

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