Transparency News 3/28/16

State and Local Stories

The city’s Public Works Department has storage rooms full of traffic lights, stop signs, pipes, copper and tools – about $3 million worth of items. But no one has officially been keeping track of the inventory like any store would do. This week, an audit determined that the Public Works Operations division has never done a year-end accounting of the items in six storage areas. That means traffic crews have been going into the store rooms or yards and grabbing the parts they need without documentation or supervision, City Auditor Lyndon Remias said. In addition, the Building Maintenance division of Public Works has not completed a yearly physical inventory for at least two years, the audit said. This violates policy and puts the department at higher risk for loss and theft, the audit stated.
Virginian-Pilot


National Stories
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Defense Secretary Ash Carter used his personal email account for government business for nearly a year until December 2015, when news reports revealed the practice, newly released documents reveal. The issue has been to the fore in Washington due to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server while secretary of state during Barack Obama’s first term. Late on Friday, in response to Freedom of Information Act requests by the Associated Press and other news organizations, the Pentagon released 1,336 pages of Carter’s emails. None contained classified information, and most pertained to routine business such as scheduling and logistics.
The Guardian

In a reversal of its usual role, the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission is fighting at the state Supreme Court against the disclosure of emails between former Connecticut House Speaker Thomas D. Ritter, now a politically connected lawyer-lobbyist, and the state's trash-management agency. At issue are communications during Ritter's years of service to the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority under a lucrative consulting contract to provide "general business advice" in a role as liaison with officials in scores of cities and towns. "[T]here was no requirement for, or even a preference for, an attorney to perform" the duties under the contract, says a legal brief filed by attorney Michael Harrington, the appellant who brought the case to the high court in hopes of forcing disclosure of the emails. He contends that the FOI Commission wrongly extended the attorney-client privilege to Ritter's communications even though they discuss normal business matters, not legitimately protected legal advice — because Ritter happens to be a lawyer.
Hartford Courant

When New York state Chief Information Officer Maggie Miller testified in February before the state legislature, she warned lawmakers of a looming IT staff crisis. Within the next few years, she said, her agency expects to lose 25 percent of its staff to retirement. As those retirements unfold, they will reduce the average level of experience for senior state IT workers from 40 years to 11 years. New York is not alone. Maine is also facing a mass exodus of its IT workforce. It estimates that 24 percent of IT workers are eligible to retire in the next two years. A National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) report last year found that 40 percent of states expect that between 11 and 20 percent of their workers will be eligible to retire in the next year, while 86 percent found it challenging to recruit new workers to fill vacant IT positions. CIOs also cited a lack of funding for training as one of the top three impediments to developing, supporting and maintaining IT services, according to the survey.
Governing

The Washington Supreme Court has upheld a $502,000 penalty for Public Records Act violations by the state Department of Labor and Industries, in a ruling that affirms judges can calculate such fines based on each page of a withheld record. The 5-4 decision Thursday came in a lawsuit by The Seattle Times. The newspaper sought records about workers' or customers' exposure to lead dust at a gun shop in Bellevue as part of a broader examination that found outdated industry-safety standards, reckless shooting-range owners and lax regulation have contributed to hundreds of lead-poisoning cases nationwide. Labor and Industries withheld responsive records under a categorical Public Records Act exemption for “investigative records” that might jeopardize a law enforcement investigation. The majority said that was inappropriate; the department’s cases are unlike active criminal investigations, largely because employers already know if they’re being investigated.
Spokesman-Review

The Prince George's County (Maryland) delegation in the House of Delegates will not meet Friday, but the Democratic caucus of that delegation will. The membership of the delegation and the caucus are precisely the same. The difference is that where delegation meetings are generally open to the public, party caucus meetings are not. Caucus meetings in counties with single-party delegations are a popular way for Maryland lawmakers to hash out local issues free from the prying eyes of the public. But the practice, defended by delegation members, raises red flags among advocates of open government.
Baltimore Sun

Editorials/Columns

Examining how our judicial system works is a vital undertaking. After all, what other government institution has as much control over lives, liberty and property as our courts? What other branch of government is responsible for sorting out the facts of who's right and who's wrong, who's guilty and who's not, who deserves punishment and who doesn't? But it's unfortunate, to say the least, that the state agency in charge of Virginia's judicial system court case information system has repeatedly thrown up roadblocks to avenues allowing the examination of the records areas. 
Daily Press

PEOPLE — quite reasonably and rightly — complain constantly about the lack of transparency in government at every level. Information requests are routinely ignored or rejected for ridiculous reasons. Elected officials don’t return phone calls. Apathy inevitably results. So does a conversation vacuum in which the only voices are the loudest, most disgruntled and ax-grinding ones, a fact that distorts too many of our civil processes. The fault no doubt lies with agencies that know there’s little consequence for shutting out the public. But the fault also lies with us. Civic engagement is a two-way process. Cities have a legal and moral obligation to keep citizens informed. Citizens have a similar duty along the way.
Virginian-Pilot