California: Media find watchdog role difficult during recession

State and local government officials increasingly are blaming budget cuts and furloughs when they withhold or delay the release of information requested under the state Public Records Act.

The result is a diminished ability for the media to perform their watchdog role – just when downsized programs and government dysfunction make that scrutiny more crucial.

High fees and long delays in responses from agencies in California have weakened the public’s right to know, blocking some investigative reports and reducing the scope or timeliness of others, said Bee reporters, other journalists and open-access experts contacted on the eve of “Sunshine Week.”

Sunshine Week, March 14-20, is an annual effort by the nonprofit, nonpartisan American Society of News Editors to promote open government, freedom of information and the public’s right to know.

“You can’t use the excuse of budget cuts to stifle the release of public information,” said state Sen. Leland Yee, the San Francisco Democrat behind some state and local efforts to improve access to government records.

“It’s even more important during these tough economic times when budgets are going to be cut, programs are going to be cut … to help the people understand the decisions we have to make.”

No one comprehensively tracks the breakdown of records requests, but the California attorney general’s office said the vast majority of requests it receives comes from individuals apparently acting on their own. Reporters, businesses, and attorneys also make thousands of public records requests annually to examine data, check the performance of lawmakers and civil servants, or examine government programs for efficiency and effectiveness.

Among the information kept from public view because of escalating fees:

• In The Bee’s investigation of deadly lapses at Sacramento County Child Protective Services, reporters discovered scores of agency employees with criminal records, including a registered sex offender. They requested e-mails for a few administrators to learn whether they knew about that individual’s conviction. The county demanded $7,049 – 53 hours at $133 per hour – to produce the e-mails. The Bee declined to pay, the e-mails never were released and the public never learned whether administrators had a clue.

• To find out if Sacramento County unduly spared managers in last year’s massive layoffs, a Bee reporter requested a list of employees by category over the last few years. The county did the work, for which it billed $1,500, for “data compilation, extraction and programming.” Because The Bee would not pay, the list never was released and readers did not learn whether managers received special treatment.

• Voiceofsandiego.org, a nonprofit news Web site, asked the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office for data on enhancements in criminal sentencing. Enhancement charges, such as “great bodily harm” or gang activity, often are applied in controversial ways to increase penalties. Some counties routinely post such information online. The reporter encountered a novel fee demand: $1,100 for “server time” – time the agency’s computer was tied up processing data for his request, a percentage of the cost of the computers, software, electricity, and employee benefits for programmers. That request remains in stalemate.

Fees rise with computers

California’s Public Records Act, signed into law in 1968, does allow limited fees in an effort to constrain overly broad requests – typically the going rate for making duplicates at copy shops. The amount was designed to facilitate public access.

In recent years, as many paper records have gone digital, computer charges have surged. Agencies often charge high fees for seemingly routine jobs, such as extracting records from a database, using sometimes-obscure criteria.

Terry Francke, who co-founded Carmichael-based Californians Aware, a nonprofit open access proponent, said many state and local computer systems were custom-built for specific operations, “not to be public records-access friendly.” Considerable effort can be required to translate records into formats usable by the press or public, he said, but cost estimates often are exaggerated and should be questioned.

Asking does sometimes lead to reductions.

Last year, The Bee requested nurse licensing data for an investigation of quality of care and overwork in the state prison system. The Board of Vocational Nurses initially said it could produce the records for $2,756 – even though a similar set of records already had been prepared for another newspaper. After The Bee challenged the costs, the board reduced the fee to $565.

The December story revealed that some prison nurses work so much overtime that they fall asleep on the job, yet earn hundreds of thousands of dollars. It led to calls by state legislators for public hearings into prison staffing problems.

Luis Farias, a spokesman for the state Department of Consumer Affairs, which represented the nursing board in the records cost dispute, blamed the original charge on miscommunication between departments that manage the records.

Peter Scheer, executive director of the San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group, said agencies do often have to rely on antiquated technology that requires hours of programming or operation to tease out records that would take minutes to access on modern systems.

“The whole point of digitizing these records for easier public access is lost,” he said. “Ironically, it creates the very kinds of nontrivial costs that the state Legislature … wanted to avoid.”

Furlough days a factor

Danielle Cervantes, a data reporting specialist at the San Diego Union-Tribune, said her paper has abandoned some important stories when local agencies charged thousands of dollars for records. Sometimes cities have contracted out their data management to private vendors, leading to $300-per-hour charges for retrieval time.

At times, Cervantes said, it appears that “cities are deliberately ‘laundering’ their data through vendors so that the public has more difficulty accessing the records.”

In recent years, many news media have sharply downsized due to communications-industry changes and the recession, and rarely pursue legal action to force disclosure or hold fees down. The legal costs are too high.

Several state agencies, including the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and the Department of General Services, have not taken reporters’ calls on furlough Fridays – even for breaking news reports on the impact of budget cuts on those agencies’ employees or clientele. In response, the Governor’s Office recently ordered agency spokespeople to adjust their furloughs to ensure that someone is available every Friday.

A few public agencies consistently have made responses to information requests a high priority. The office of Attorney General Jerry Brown responds to most inquiries promptly, albeit with the advantage of not being subject to the governor’s furlough policy.

Christine Gasparac, Brown’s press secretary, said her department tries to be “as responsive as possible to the public,” in part by using a central tracking system for the roughly 100 PRA requests and 15 to 20 statistical requests it receives monthly. Staff members are automatically reminded about compliance deadlines, and offered assistance if needed.

Brown’s office charges 10 cents per page for paper records after the first 24 pages, which are free, and does not charge for digital records.

By comparison, California State University, Sacramento’s fee policies have created seemingly irrational bureaucratic delays. For example, the university recently required a Bee reporter to send a check for $1.80 before it would release a nine-page document. The process actually cost the university money, because the fee was lower than the cost of processing the payment.

Whether by intent or circumstance, such practices suppress the timely release of newsworthy information.

“There’s still a general attitude in government that we are here for public policy, and anything that stands in the way – a pesky reporter, a strident citizen,” is an impediment, said Yee, the state senator. “It’s important that there’s a sea change of attitude in government.”