Tag: Transparency Tuesday

We've talked on this blog in the past about the value of the IRS Form 990 in cracking the wall of silence at private colleges (and at the nonprofit "auxiliary" affiliates of public colleges, too). But there's a less-well-known way to use federal tax forms to check on what colleges are up to.Any good-sized college will belong to a multitude of nonprofit organizations, and each of those organizations also must file -- and must make publicly availably -- an annual tax return with details of its revenues and expenses.

A Minnesota court is poised to decide how much information the public can demand from construction companies that take on eight-figure government contracts but decline to abide by the same disclosure requirements that apply to government agencies.The Timberjay, a weekly newspaper in northern Minnesota, is fighting to prove that a construction management firm and its subcontractors must honor requests under Minnesota's Government Data Practices Act for details about schools they are building at the public's expense.Typically, private companies are not within the reach of state open-records laws, which entitle the public to review and copy documents that are in the custody of state, county or city agencies.But lawyers for The Timberjay say this situation isn't typical. By assuming management of a $78 million package of school district construction projects, a private vendor, Johnson Controls Inc., also assumed the disclosure responsibilities that go along with that authority, they argue.Attorneys for the company argue that, in addition to expanding the law beyond its literal terms, a ruling in favor of the newspaper would discourage firms from seeking government work for fear of giving away sensitive internal information to competitors.The ruling will apply only in Minnesota, but it will be watched throughout the country, with governments increasingly "privatizing" what used to be public services performed by public employees.Variations of the issue are recurring across the country. The South Carolina Supreme Court will decide whether a state association of school administrators is so entangled with government -- through taxpayer funding, through the receipt of fringe benefits normally reserved for public employees and through exercise of legislatively assigned duties -- that it should be forced to obey South Carolina's open-records act.In Minnesota, the state Court of Appeals heard arguments last week in the Timberjay case, testing whether a private company can be brought within the coverage of the Data Practices Act when it performs a governmental function.And that question -- how "governmental" is the job of constructing school buildings -- may be decisive.Often, the information that journalists need about private contractors' performance is available through the government agencies involved in the contract.

In a setback for public access, a South Carolina judge has refused to allow journalists to review a medical examiner's autopsy report in connection with the death of a 25-year-old man shot by police.In a July 9 order, a Sumter County trial judge decided that autopsy records fall within the exemption in South Carolina's Freedom of Information Act covering "medical" records.Although autopsy reports traditionally are public record, privacy advocates are gaining traction across the country in seeking confidentiality, in part because of concerns that gruesome photos upsetting to the survivors may be widely distributed online.Reporter Joe Perry and his Sumter, S.C., newspaper, The Item, sued the Sumter County coroner in May 2011 seeking access to the autopsy records for Aaron Lee Jacobs, who was shot to death after officers investigating a carjacking said he drew a gun.Although the ruling went against disclosure, the outcome could have been far worse for journalists.The coroner's primary argument was that the records were confidential under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA"), which often is used frivolously by government agencies to withhold records that, as in this case, have nothing to do with a doctor's delivery of medical treatment.

What's more frustrating than asking for public records and getting back a page full of mysterious black rectangles?Getting charged extra for the rectangles.When a public record contains material that is legally exempt from disclosure, state open-records laws typically require that the agency blank out -- or "redact" -- the exempt material and produce the rest.It's a common-sense alternative to making openness all-or-nothing.

If even the chief executive of one of Silicon Valley's biggest companies can be caught in an exaggeration on a resumé, then there's a chance that the provost of the local college and the superintendent of the local school district aren't above inflating their credentials as well.While it's the employer's job to verify the professional and educational claims before making a high-profile hire, the system isn't foolproof.

There's nothing "private" about what your face looks like, and there's nothing "private" about being arrested for a crime.

The emerging storyline at the University of Virginia's board of visitors -- with back-room duplicity that would be more at home in "Game of Thrones" than in Mr. Jefferson's stodgy academic preserve -- is a stark reminder of the breadth of college trustees' authority.

With shrinking subsidies from state legislatures and tuition maxed out to affordability and beyond, colleges understandably are looking at everything but selling the provost's plasma as a means of generating money.

Two recent news items reinforce the importance of keeping track of what colleges and universities are spending on lobbying at the state Capitol -- and not just "how much," but also "why."Item 1: Sometimes it's a whole lot of money.The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the University of Pittsburgh ramped up its lobbying activity -- spending $113,000 in the first three months of 2012 alone -- in an attempt to fend off massive cuts in state aid proposed by Gov.

State inspectors recently wrote up Northern Illinois University for seven "severe" safety violations in a classroom/office building, including failure to label potentially hazardous chemicals or to make sure emergency lights worked properly.It was, a state Department of Labor official told the Northern Star newspaper, the first time in 11 years that the department had gotten around to visiting NIU.That sounds pretty slack, but in reality, a once-a-decade visit from independent inspectors still is more attention than a lot of college buildings receive.An Iowa City man is suing the University of Iowa, alleging that the university and its property management company failed to repair water leaks in his campus apartment, resulting in mold that made him seriously ill.