Wednesday, Sep 01, 2010, 12:05PM CST
By Lynn Walsh
The Houston school district says it’s protecting donors’ privacy by marking out addresses, but an open government expert says it’s an unnecessary use of taxpayer money.
The Houston Independent School District publishes trustees’ campaign finance reports on its website but marks out significant details, including donors’ addresses and campaign treasurer’s phone numbers and addresses.
The full information can be found in the reports Texas Watchdog has posted on Scribd, and the complete reports are available for in-person inspection at the district’s headquarters.
But the online omissions contrast with what Superintendent Terry Grier has pledged will be a transparent approach to running the district and drew criticism from one expert in government transparency.
”HISD should be commended for posting redacted campaign forms online even though they are not legally obligated to do so,” Joe Larsen, a specialist on open records for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said in an interview with Texas Watchdog.
“However, there is no reason for it to redact publicly available and information from these forms before posting them, as this redaction process unnecessarily consumes taxpayer money, and the redacted information is of legitimate public interest—which is why it is required on the forms in the first place,” the Houston attorney said.
Texas Watchdog noticed that certain information was redacted after viewing the documents online and at HISD’s headquarters on West 18th Street. The latter is an option available to any member of the public wanting to see the complete forms though a busy daytime schedule could make it inconvenient.
In their online iteration, the reports are missing the phone numbers and addresses of campaign treasurers, addresses of companies like AT&T and the Houston West Chamber of Commerce that were paid by the campaigns for services, and addresses of individuals and companies who donated to trustee campaigns, all of which have been “whited out.”
HISD spokesman Norm Uhl said the district posts the documents redacted to preserve the privacy of individuals.
“HISD does not want to put it online for anyone to see,” Uhl said. “It is about protecting them, mainly the individual donors’ privacy online.”
According to the Texas Ethics Commission, HISD is not violating any laws.
“Since there is not a law that requires a school district to post the forms online, there are not any laws that pertain to the action of redacting certain information before posting them,” Tim Sorrells, a lawyer and commission spokesman, said.
While it may not be against the law, is HISD being transparent to the public?
“Yes,” Uhl said. “The information is available upon request.”
Uhl was referring to the public’s right to view and request copies of the documents under the Texas Public Information Act.
But obscuring the details in the online documents makes it difficult for the public to identify who is giving money to trustees’ campaigns, since many people share the same names. Without having additional details about a person, like an address, it is hard to determine whether the John Doe donor is the same one whose company was just awarded a contract. (That’s not just a hypothetical; see our story here.)
And what’s more, the posting of incomplete documents seems incongruous with statements by Grier, who has stressed the need for transparency in HISD many times.
“It's very important to be transparent so our taxpayers, our community and everyone knows what we're doing and why we're doing it,” Grier said at a board workshop in May.
Watch his comments in the video below.
But the online omissions contrast with what Superintendent Terry Grier has pledged will be a transparent approach to running the district and drew criticism from one expert in government transparency.
”HISD should be commended for posting redacted campaign forms online even though they are not legally obligated to do so,” Joe Larsen, a specialist on open records for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said in an interview with Texas Watchdog.
“However, there is no reason for it to redact publicly available and information from these forms before posting them, as this redaction process unnecessarily consumes taxpayer money, and the redacted information is of legitimate public interest—which is why it is required on the forms in the first place,” the Houston attorney said.
Texas Watchdog noticed that certain information was redacted after viewing the documents online and at HISD’s headquarters on West 18th Street. The latter is an option available to any member of the public wanting to see the complete forms though a busy daytime schedule could make it inconvenient.
In their online iteration, the reports are missing the phone numbers and addresses of campaign treasurers, addresses of companies like AT&T and the Houston West Chamber of Commerce that were paid by the campaigns for services, and addresses of individuals and companies who donated to trustee campaigns, all of which have been “whited out.”
HISD spokesman Norm Uhl said the district posts the documents redacted to preserve the privacy of individuals.
“HISD does not want to put it online for anyone to see,” Uhl said. “It is about protecting them, mainly the individual donors’ privacy online.”
According to the Texas Ethics Commission, HISD is not violating any laws.
“Since there is not a law that requires a school district to post the forms online, there are not any laws that pertain to the action of redacting certain information before posting them,” Tim Sorrells, a lawyer and commission spokesman, said.
While it may not be against the law, is HISD being transparent to the public?
“Yes,” Uhl said. “The information is available upon request.”
Uhl was referring to the public’s right to view and request copies of the documents under the Texas Public Information Act.
But obscuring the details in the online documents makes it difficult for the public to identify who is giving money to trustees’ campaigns, since many people share the same names. Without having additional details about a person, like an address, it is hard to determine whether the John Doe donor is the same one whose company was just awarded a contract. (That’s not just a hypothetical; see our story here.)
And what’s more, the posting of incomplete documents seems incongruous with statements by Grier, who has stressed the need for transparency in HISD many times.
“It's very important to be transparent so our taxpayers, our community and everyone knows what we're doing and why we're doing it,” Grier said at a board workshop in May.
Watch his comments in the video below.
View complete July 2010 campaign finance forms for each HISD trustee at the links below:
Diana Dávila (resigned in August)
Anna Eastman
Carol Galloway
Paula Harris
Mike Lunceford
Larry Marshall
Greg Meyers
Harvin Moore
Manuel Rodriguez
Support the posting of public documents like these, even when government officials have made them hard to access otherwise. Donate to Texas Watchdog today.
Do you think HISD is being transparent? What would you like to see the Houston district do to be more transparent? Let reporter Lynn Walsh know via e-mail at lynn@texaswatchdog.org or on Twitter: @LWalsh. Be sure to search for #HISD on Twitter for up-to-the-minute updates from board meetings.
Diana Dávila (resigned in August)
Anna Eastman
Carol Galloway
Paula Harris
Mike Lunceford
Larry Marshall
Greg Meyers
Harvin Moore
Manuel Rodriguez
Support the posting of public documents like these, even when government officials have made them hard to access otherwise. Donate to Texas Watchdog today.
Do you think HISD is being transparent? What would you like to see the Houston district do to be more transparent? Let reporter Lynn Walsh know via e-mail at lynn@texaswatchdog.org or on Twitter: @LWalsh. Be sure to search for #HISD on Twitter for up-to-the-minute updates from board meetings.
Photo of a bottle of Wite-Out correction fluid by flickr user memsahib 313, used via a Creative Commons license.
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