Sunshine Sunday 2009 preview

Results of FSNE members’ statewide audits of public agencies’ compliance

We have some early content this year. Several contributors have published articles, and we have compiled data regarding access to public information.

Download October 2008 public records audit data

Disqualified audits

Holmes County Govt - Audit attempted when office closed for lunch. No retry attempted.

Levy schools - Audit attempted when agency had closed for the day. People there directed auditor to return next business day. No retry attempted.

Hendry schools - Auditor admitted being a reporter when asked.

Audit conclusions

A public records audit conducted last month showed similar results as in previous years with 43 percent of agencies reviewed failing to properly turn over emails written by their top administrators.

Less than 1 in 3 auditors actually received the emails they requested, either because the agency placed illegal demands on them, said no emails or memos existed or because of delays in getting the record.

Among the mistakes by agencies:

17.5 percent required a written request 16.3 percent required the requestors to give their name 3.8 percent said they needed to know the reason auditors wanted the records

This year, auditors asking for simple public records - all emails - were greeted with confusion and sometimes suspicion. Public employees who interact with the public, and in some cases their supervisors, time and again did not know how to retrieve emails regarding their agency's budget.

Many audit volunteers were bounced around from office to office, told they would have to wait days or weeks to get the records or told the only employee who could retrieve the records was not there that day. One person was told that a recent email from the Sheriff to the Board of County Commissioners who oversee his budget, would cost $75 to $150 to produce.

In a couple of cases, government officials were so suspicious they ran background checks to find out who was asking for an email. One reporter was contacted by the Jefferson County School District and was told they ran her license plate to find out who she was when she showed up asking for emails.

Auditors requested records at 160 county agencies in 55 of the state's 67 counties. The Associated Press, newspapers statewide and college students volunteered their time to perform the audit, which was organized by Florida Society of Newspaper Editors and the non-profit First Amendment Foundation. Where audit volunteers could not be found, counties were not covered.

Methodology

Please review how we classified the results of your audit and air any concerns ASAP. You can call Chris Davis at 941 361-4901.

The pass/fail ratings are always somewhat subjective. The easy part are the illegal requirements. Basically if an agency required an auditor to give their name, a reason for request or to fill out a request form, they were failed. It gets a bit tricker after that. We also counted a number as failing because of delays in getting the records. Basically, if agencies said come back later or so-and-so is out today and he has to get the records, we counted that as a fail. If, however, a delay in getting the records came with a promise to provide them and the delay was because of the work of retrieving the record, we counted that as passing.

We counted several agencies as failing because they referred an auditor to a Web site for the records. That counted as failing under 2 circumstances: 1. It was over the objections of the auditor who clearly asked for the records to be provided while they were at the agency on their audit day. 2. The Web site had meeting minutes and budget books, but did not clearly have the kinds of emails the auditor sought.

There are a couple of agencies that were failed because they simply refused to give up the records or said they were not public. Look in the "My notes" field for a flag on those.

We disqualified a couple of audits because of issues with how the audit was handled. (If an agency recognized the person as a reporter, for example)