OCEANSIDE — State public salary database Transparent California filed a lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court against the California Department of Education, alleging it blocked the release of superintendent and business officer contact information in Transparent’s public records requests.
The lawsuit alleges state education officials have stopped releasing contact information that Transparent California says is necessary “as part of its ongoing effort to make government pay and pension data public.”
Though the contact information for school districts’ K-12 superintendents and chief business officers is available on the department’s website, Transparent California alleges the department is using a legal exemption that other government agencies could use to withhold information from the public.
“They’re not denying the data exists. They’re not denying the public can see it on their own website right now,” said Todd Maddison, director of research at Transparent California. “They just don’t want to hand it over in a format we can actually use to make sure our PRA requests are received by those districts. That’s not a legal exemption — that’s an inconvenience they’re choosing to protect.”
The California Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The exemption stems from CDE’s claim that publishing such contact information has exposed school district officials to copious spam messages and security threats, though Transparent California says no evidence has been presented to support that assertion.
Transparent California says a similar use of the exemption led to a legal victory against CSU San Marcos, which a judge ordered to disclose the requested public records and pay nearly $100,000 in costs and attorney’s fees.
“Everyone, including public employees, gets spam. That’s not a reason to gut the Public Records Act,” Maddison said. “If CDE wins this argument, any agency in the state could use it to keep the public from being able to contact officials and employees.”
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We’re just one of the many watchdog agencies across the state trying to illuminate the dark corners of government spending.
In this case, I can tell you that every single person who looks up their local agency (city, county, school board, water district, transit district, etc) universally says “my god, I didn’t realize government employees made that much!”
Because all of us have lived through decades of hearing about poor underfunded governments that simply can’t afford to pay people enough to attract quality employees or provide services for taxpayers.
Which, if you actually look at the data, is not true. They have plenty of money, they just usually choose to spend it on themselves.
Total human nature. “Give me more money” is always the best way to solve a problem, but that’s why WE think every single taxpayer in the state should be required to spend five minutes browsing our site before voting on ANY tax increase…. (!)
And every councilman or school board member should be required to know this data before voting to approve pay or benefit increases….