Things that make you go, Hummmm...?!
April 14, 2008
The Clarion-Ledger
Seeking government transparency can be costly.
Using the state's public-records law, The Clarion-Ledger in February asked Gov. Haley Barbour's office to produce four days' worth of e-mails from Barbour's staff of about 40 people. The governor's office replied on March 27 with a cost estimate of $14,170.48.
Leslie Graves, president of the Wisconsin-based Lucy Burns Institute, which promotes open government issues, said that is by far the highest dollar figure she has heard for such a request.
"You win," she said, adding that in an age of increasing technological ease, Barbour's response to the request was "prehistoric."
The estimate includes $7,500 to hire private attorneys to review the e-mails for exempted material, $5,400 to bring in an out-of-town computer consultant, nearly $800 for staff from the Department of Finance and Administration's Office of Information Technology to collect the messages, and just under $500 for the governor's press secretary to give them a final review.
Graves is one of the organizers of the Sunshine Blogger Project, an effort to find out whether governors are preserving the electronic documents according to each state's public-records law and whether they can produce them in response to a public-records request. The Clarion-Ledger, which has an open-government blog on its Web site, participated in the exercise by submitting a request to Barbour's office Feb. 21 for all e-mails sent or received from midnight Feb. 15 through Feb. 19.
Graves noted Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, and Charlie Crist, the Republican governor of Florida, responded to identical requests by producing the e-mails within a few days and at no cost. Those who required requesters to pay for the e-mails assessed charges ranging from $200 to $1,350 for the records.
Buddy Bynum, Barbour's director of communications, said the estimate is reasonable given the breadth of the request.
"It seems to me that it is the best assessment for what it would cost for your request," he said.
Bynum said the governor's office properly archives all its e-mails but has no ability to retrieve them without assistance from technology experts.
"It may already be archived or filed or taken off of our active system," he said.
He would not explain why the request requires the state to bring in an out-of-town computer consultant.
"The letter speaks for itself on that. You are welcome to quote from it," he said. "I'm not prepared to go beyond the letter. We're, just as a courtesy, talking to you."
The letter explains: "The Mississippi Department of Finance & Administration does not maintain these e-mail records for the Governor's office in a separate file, and extracting them from the system will entail a significant amount of time and expertise which DFA personnel can not handle internally. DFA will require the assistance of a consultant to properly respond."
Before estimating cost, the governor's office twice asked The Clarion-Ledger to narrow the request to a specific subject matter "to avoid the substantial expense" of reviewing all the e-mails for the period requested.
The majority of the costs come from nonstate employees the governor plans to hire to complete the request. Bynum said that is in the best interest of the state as a whole.
"The governor's staff and the DFA can't work on your request ... and neglect their work on every other front," he said.
When asked if retrieving a single e-mail from that time period would require outside help from computer and legal experts, Bynum said, "We don't answer the hypothetical."
Leonard Van Slyke, an expert on Mississippi public records law and an attorney for The Clarion-Ledger, said state law allows the governor to recover the actual cost of retrieving requested records. However, he said he does not believe it covers the hiring of nongovernmental employees to do it.
"I would certainly think there is someone in the government of the state of Mississippi that could pull e-mail from the system," he said.
Ninety-one percent of the costs estimated by the request come from the hiring of outside consultants.
"The ability to charge actual costs should not ever be used as a method to keep from producing records requested," Van Slyke said. "A government entity is not entitled to go outside and run up cost."
Graves said the governor's solutions seem to describe a system that is not set up to be transparent. Such extreme costs would place public records from Barbour office out of reach for ordinary citizens.
Bynum, who was aware of the project, noted some governors would not release the e-mails at all.
"It definitely would be cheaper to refuse to answer," he said.
In Mississippi, the governor's e-mails are public record, although some material can be excluded for specific reasons, such as discussion of personnel issues or the trade secrets of government contractors.
Clarion-Ledger Executive Editor Ronnie Agnew said the paper is exploring its options.
"The loser in the quest for accountability is the regular taxpayer, who, if making a similar request, would be in a state of shock to receive such a staggering bill. Anyone who knows anything about technology knows that it should not cost $14,000 to forward a bunch of emails," he said. "It's an insult to us and to taxpayers to suggest that such a basic use of technology is worth the cost of a good, mid-priced car."
Chris Joyner
chris.joyner@jackson.gannett.com
April 14, 2008
The Clarion-Ledger
Seeking government transparency can be costly.
Using the state's public-records law, The Clarion-Ledger in February asked Gov. Haley Barbour's office to produce four days' worth of e-mails from Barbour's staff of about 40 people. The governor's office replied on March 27 with a cost estimate of $14,170.48.
Leslie Graves, president of the Wisconsin-based Lucy Burns Institute, which promotes open government issues, said that is by far the highest dollar figure she has heard for such a request.
"You win," she said, adding that in an age of increasing technological ease, Barbour's response to the request was "prehistoric."
The estimate includes $7,500 to hire private attorneys to review the e-mails for exempted material, $5,400 to bring in an out-of-town computer consultant, nearly $800 for staff from the Department of Finance and Administration's Office of Information Technology to collect the messages, and just under $500 for the governor's press secretary to give them a final review.
Graves is one of the organizers of the Sunshine Blogger Project, an effort to find out whether governors are preserving the electronic documents according to each state's public-records law and whether they can produce them in response to a public-records request. The Clarion-Ledger, which has an open-government blog on its Web site, participated in the exercise by submitting a request to Barbour's office Feb. 21 for all e-mails sent or received from midnight Feb. 15 through Feb. 19.
Graves noted Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, and Charlie Crist, the Republican governor of Florida, responded to identical requests by producing the e-mails within a few days and at no cost. Those who required requesters to pay for the e-mails assessed charges ranging from $200 to $1,350 for the records.
Buddy Bynum, Barbour's director of communications, said the estimate is reasonable given the breadth of the request.
"It seems to me that it is the best assessment for what it would cost for your request," he said.
Bynum said the governor's office properly archives all its e-mails but has no ability to retrieve them without assistance from technology experts.
"It may already be archived or filed or taken off of our active system," he said.
He would not explain why the request requires the state to bring in an out-of-town computer consultant.
"The letter speaks for itself on that. You are welcome to quote from it," he said. "I'm not prepared to go beyond the letter. We're, just as a courtesy, talking to you."
The letter explains: "The Mississippi Department of Finance & Administration does not maintain these e-mail records for the Governor's office in a separate file, and extracting them from the system will entail a significant amount of time and expertise which DFA personnel can not handle internally. DFA will require the assistance of a consultant to properly respond."
Before estimating cost, the governor's office twice asked The Clarion-Ledger to narrow the request to a specific subject matter "to avoid the substantial expense" of reviewing all the e-mails for the period requested.
The majority of the costs come from nonstate employees the governor plans to hire to complete the request. Bynum said that is in the best interest of the state as a whole.
"The governor's staff and the DFA can't work on your request ... and neglect their work on every other front," he said.
When asked if retrieving a single e-mail from that time period would require outside help from computer and legal experts, Bynum said, "We don't answer the hypothetical."
Leonard Van Slyke, an expert on Mississippi public records law and an attorney for The Clarion-Ledger, said state law allows the governor to recover the actual cost of retrieving requested records. However, he said he does not believe it covers the hiring of nongovernmental employees to do it.
"I would certainly think there is someone in the government of the state of Mississippi that could pull e-mail from the system," he said.
Ninety-one percent of the costs estimated by the request come from the hiring of outside consultants.
"The ability to charge actual costs should not ever be used as a method to keep from producing records requested," Van Slyke said. "A government entity is not entitled to go outside and run up cost."
Graves said the governor's solutions seem to describe a system that is not set up to be transparent. Such extreme costs would place public records from Barbour office out of reach for ordinary citizens.
Bynum, who was aware of the project, noted some governors would not release the e-mails at all.
"It definitely would be cheaper to refuse to answer," he said.
In Mississippi, the governor's e-mails are public record, although some material can be excluded for specific reasons, such as discussion of personnel issues or the trade secrets of government contractors.
Clarion-Ledger Executive Editor Ronnie Agnew said the paper is exploring its options.
"The loser in the quest for accountability is the regular taxpayer, who, if making a similar request, would be in a state of shock to receive such a staggering bill. Anyone who knows anything about technology knows that it should not cost $14,000 to forward a bunch of emails," he said. "It's an insult to us and to taxpayers to suggest that such a basic use of technology is worth the cost of a good, mid-priced car."
Chris Joyner
chris.joyner@jackson.gannett.com
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