Digg|
Save|
License|
Print|
E-mail|
Double-click any word or phrase in the story to search this site.
February 3, 2008 - 12:13AM
State workers’ records should be open to all
Le Templar, Tribune Columnist
You can read the citations and complaints about your neighborhood police officer. You can see if the county roads administrator has been praised or condemned by his supervisors. And you can research why the school superintendent received her last pay raise.
But you can’t read anything about the qualifications of the state parks director. You can’t peer into the work history of the state’s top tax auditor. And you can’t learn why the state prisons director has trouble holding on to press secretaries.
Notice the pattern here? You or I can ask to see employment resumes and performance records of people who work for cities, counties and school districts. But the personnel records of an estimated 65,000 state employees are considered private and strictly off-limits.
“One way or the other way is wrong, isn’t it?” said Rep. John McComish of Ahwatukee Foothills, the House Republican whip.
Yes, it is. And for those who believe in open government, this overly broad exception for state employees creates a giant hole of secrecy.
A bill introduced this year by Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, would end that discrepancy. HCR2054 was inspired by a legislative review of Child Protective Services and the deaths of three Tucson children. Paton and other lawmakers believe secrecy rules for state employee records have helped CPS to cover up bad decision-making. However, HCR2054 would apply to all state employees, not just CPS caseworkers.
“If police officers and other public safety officers can have their records obtained, then they all should be open,” said House Speaker Pro Tem Bob Robson, R-Chandler. “It should be about transparency.”
The bill hasn’t gotten much attention at the state Capitol yet. But keeping the measure bottled up has become a priority for the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees.
Union lobbyist Norman Ulman makes a good point that the bill doesn’t include any protections for employee privacy that most reasonable people would expect, such as not disclosing home phone numbers or the names of minor children.
Still, Ulman admits the union would oppose the bill even with those protections. Unlike elected officials, rank-and-file workers should have the same confidentiality that any private-sector employee would expect, he said.
“Whether you do or don’t want to treat public employees as a citizen like everyone else, they are human beings, too,” Ulman said.
They are human beings who make their living from our tax dollars. Their actions affect wide sections of the public, and reflect on all of us. So we should have the right to read in black and white how they are doing on the job.
News updates are sent daily. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Please add your comments, but follow these guidelines to keep this a safe, credible place for discussing the news: