The Tennessee Open Records Act, and how well the Board and superintendent respond
Posted by | Posted in School Paragraph | Posted on 12-04-2011
Will I give up?
Not on your life.
I requested spending-related records from our school district Board and superintendent, under the Open Records Act on 2/27/11. Under the law, they have 7 working days to respond. They didn’t. Then I got a casual response 10 days later from a person who works for the superintendent that my request is being “researched”. I repeated the request on 3/12/11, reminding them that they are in violation of this law.
Their attorney responded saying that there is no violation because the person tasked with getting me the info had some “contract off” days which were not working days. Counting “contracts off days” under the law does not apply. They also ignored the second request. I got our county law director involved and an attorney involved.
It is sad that one has to do this.
To date, 4/14/11 at 8 AM, I received nothing, and no response of any sort other than what I mention above. Sentinel editorial staff, this is how the Knox County School system responded to the TN Open Records Act.
Obviously, even if I get something, the big question for me will be, how many excuses will they present, and is their response the truth or something they created during all these days. I saw some creative “packaging” of information from them before. You should see McIntyre’s budget for 2011-2012. It is some smoke and mirrors show.
We pay the most of our taxes to them annually, millions above $400 million. But the $380 million budget the superintendent presents is far below the real number.This is how the Board of Education and KCS management respond to the Open Records Act. McIntyre does incremental budgeting, not zero based budgeting, and keeps up the incremental part forever. The Board just approves what he and his people want. And the educational results keep going nowhere.
I am not going to give up, but obviously they use this kind of “compliance” with the law to frustrate citizens and not respond to them.
If you do not submit a request under the Open Records Act, you have zero chance for an answer that gets into the spending area or into ACTUAL practices in the classroom, or how fairly they compensate — friends.
Everybody has to watch expenses today. So McIntyre not only asks for more money, but gives himself a raise in the new budget to $284K. But don’t blame him. The Board majority approved his hiring and any budget he submitted. The Board may say otherwise, but their actions indicate that they do not give a hoot about what the money will do to improve the education of our children. Naturally, no one would say that who runs or may run for the office.
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