The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has not answered questions about how much money it erroneously overbilled a pharmaceutical manufacturer and may have to pay back, despite the issue triggering significant cuts to HIV services for low-income Virginians. CBS 6 submitted a public records request in an effort to obtain that information, but the agency’s response revealed little. … Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, first confirmed a rebate issue to CBS 6 last month. Now, we’ve learned through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that Gilead sent a letter to VDH in February 2025 alerting the agency of “an administrative error which caused claims to be classified and paid incorrectly.” That resulted in Gilead overpaying rebates to VDH, according to the letter. … As to how much money VDH may owe back to Gilead, the agency has not said. VDH heavily redacted the February 2025 letter from Gilead that may contain that information. The letter says, “Gilead is seeking repayment of…” and rest of the sentence is blacked out. In explaining the redactions, VDH cited a discretionary FOIA exemption meant to protect certain economic development information. VDH suggested the agency promised Gilead that it would keep the redacted information confidential to use for “business purposes.” The language of the cited exemption shields business “development or retention” from mandatory disclosure. Megan Rhyne, a FOIA expert and transparency advocate with the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said it did not appear that the agency appropriately applied the cited exemption.

The Fredericksburg School Board is considering revisions to its policy governing public comments that are designed to provide “greater clarity and more specificity” to the process, deputy superintendent Matt Eberhardt said on Monday. Policy BDDH, titled “Public Participation in School Board Meetings,” was adopted in 1992 and last revised in August of 2024. The revisions now under consideration were written in consultation with a team of attorneys, Eberhardt emphasized. … The proposed revisions specify who is eligible to address the School Board and state that comments “shall be addressed to the entire School Board and not to individual Board members, the Superintendent, staff, or other members of the audience;” that speakers should maintain “civility, decorum and respect;” that “complaints regarding division employees should be directed to the appropriate school division official;” and that “comments that amount to a personal attack against any School Board member … are not allowed.”

Note: The story does not go into “who is eligible” to speak, but because that’s really important, I’ve reposted the proposal here, and linked to all the revisions here. In short — no one without a Fredericksburg tie.
“Members of the public eligible to address the School Board include residents of Fredericksburg City; businesses located in whole or in part in Fredericksburg City; Fredericksburg City taxpayers; current or former FCPS students; parents and guardians of FCPS students that live outside of Fredericksburg City; FCPS employees and retirees; or representatives of organizations serving FCPS employees and students.”

The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors abruptly fired the county administrator on Tuesday following a prolonged closed session after the regular monthly meeting. Sam McLearen was hired to the role Feb. 1, 2025, and was a 25-year employee of Culpeper County. The vote was 4-2 to terminate McLearen from the position, following a more than three-hour meeting behind closed doors. … “As unfortunate as this outcome is, this is specifically why you had three incumbents lose last November, and the three new positions ran on full transparency and a change to the structure of the county’s government to make it more progressive and efficient,” Supervisor Keith Farrish said in open session after the closed session Tuesday, broadcast by Culpeper Media Network. Supervisor Paul Bates questioned how the action was transparent when he and other board members did not know about it. “Minutes before the meeting, we’re hit with a closed session item, none of us were made aware of what’s going on — now how transparent is that? For you to say that’s transparent, you and I are looking at a different dictionary,” Bates said.

The ex-CEO of the University of Virginia Health System, who last year after accusations of criminal overbilling and unethical business practices came to light, has filed suit against the law firm representing his former physicians and the widows of dead patients. In an interesting twist, Dr. Craig Kent claims it is the lawyers of New Orleans-based Jones Swanson Huddell and Charlottesville’s MichieHamlett — and not their clients — that have defamed him and led the campaign to oust him from his position as the highest-paid employee at Virginia’s flagship public university. Kent’s suit alleges the law firms publicized “shocking — and demonstrably false — accusations about him to the UVA Board of Visitors and later, to the news media” that damaged his reputation and cost him millions in lost current and future wages. Prior to his resignation, Kent’s annual salary totaled $1.6 million.

Muscatine County’s (Iowa) top prosecutor says federal law prohibits her from publicly releasing the county jail’s agreement to detain people picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Like other Iowa counties, Muscatine County has a contract with the federal government to house some of the immigrants who are picked up in Iowa by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. … On Feb. 19, Talkington responded by stating that she had turned over the request to ICE for that agency to handle through the federal Freedom of Information Act. Any future communication on the issue, she said, would come from ICE and not from the county. After the Capital Dispatch objected, noting that it was not seeking access to federal records held by ICE but to county records subject to Iowa’s Open Records Law, County Attorney Korie Talkington replied with a letter in which she stated, “I am not able to provide a copy of the contract with ICE/DHS. Release is a violation of federal law.” When asked what federal law she was referring to, and who at ICE had advised her on the issue, Talkington gave the Capital Dispatch the name of one of the three ICE employees she said she’d consulted with, and did not cite the federal law she said prohibits disclosure.

Justin Timberlake has gone to court to prevent the release of police body camera video of his 2024 arrest for driving while intoxicated in the Hamptons area of Long Island, New York. Arguing that releasing the video would constitute an invasion of his privacy, Timberlake’s attorneys are asking a judge to block the release of the video or to conduct a private review of it and stop the disclosure of material not subject to disclosure under New York’s Freedom of Information Law. Multiple news organizations, including NBC News, have filed public records requests for the bodycam video of Timberlake’s arrest. In court documents, his attorneys argue that the video shows personally identifiable information and private details that are not relevant to “any law enforcement action of public concern.”