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January
28,
2002
Schools chief had background check run on person who requested
info
By Eric Eyre
Staff writer
CLAY County Schools Superintendent Jerry Linkinoggor knows most
folks in the
county.
So when a person came to the Board of Education office in Clay in
October,
asked for the superintendent's employment contract and declined to
identify
himself, Linkinoggor became suspicious.
"It was real eerie and real scary," Linkinoggor recalled. "He
came close to being escorted out of here by the sheriff."
Linkinoggor was one of six county school superintendents in West
Virginia who
refused to release copies of their contracts during an audit to
determine how
well county officials comply with the state's Freedom of
Information Act.
Superintendent contracts detail salaries and fringe benefits.
The superintendents criticized the audit, saying it was
unprofessional because
those who requested the document refused to state a reason.
However, state law
does not require people who want public information to identify
themselves or
to cite a reason for their request.
The county school leaders also said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
made them
and their employees "jumpy" about people they didn't know.
Linkinoggor, for instance, had a sheriff's deputy run a criminal
background
check on the person who requested his contract. Linkinoggor said
the person
belonged to the American Civil Liberties Union and lived in St.
Albans. His
record was clean.
Children were playing on two playgrounds outside the board office
when the
auditor visited, Linkinoggor said.
"We're just real protective here," Linkinoggor said. "We were
upset the way this was done. It was an invasion. We'll be
cooperative if people
cooperate with us."
More than half of superintendents visited during the audit
declined to release
their contracts until presented with a Freedom of Information Act
letter.
"There's a sensitivity about superintendents' contracts," said
Howard
O'Cull, executive director of the West Virginia School Boards
Association.
"But they have to realize this is public information, and they
should be
willing to release it."
O'Cull's organization doesn't provide training in FOIA because
board members
rarely receive such requests. Those usually go to the
superintendents. O'Cull
said the association may start distributing information about FOIA
to board
members.
The West Virginia Association of School Administrators also
doesn't provide
formal training about the act to superintendents, said executive
director Fred
Radabaugh.
Superintendents already should understand the law, he said.
"Most everything we do is public information," Radabaugh said.
In Wyoming County, Superintendent Frank Blackwell declined to mail
a copy of
his contract to the person who requested it. Instead, he sent a
"nice" letter, saying the auditor could inspect it in his office.
The
person never came.
"I don't have to make a copy of it," said Blackwell, who was cited
for not complying with the request in the audit tally.
Blackwell said staff members plugged the person's name and address
into an
Internet "people finder." There was a different person listed at
the
address, he said.
"This upset my people," Blackwell said. "If somebody wants
information, they ought to be able to tell you who they are. This
wasn't done
in such a way that anybody would want to be helpful."
Mark Manchin, Webster County superintendent at the time, wasn't in
his office
when an auditor requested his contract. He praised his secretaries
for not
releasing the information. He refused to send it later.
"I told them, ‘You don't give that,'" said Manchin, who now serves
as
McDowell County superintendent. "The whole thing was bad.
Everybody was
jumpy."
Wood County Superintendent Dan Curry acknowledged he became
"defensive" about the request for his contract. The auditor also
asked for a copy of his evaluation at the same time.
Curry released the contract after he received an FOIA letter. But
he declined
to release his evaluation, saying it was exempt from the Freedom
of Information
Act.
Instead, he gave the person a copy of the meeting minutes of the
school board,
whose members gave a statement about his performance.
"FOIA is not intended to be a ‘gotcha' kind of provision," Curry
said. "It's intended to make information available."
Curry also said he called the person who made the request to see
whether he had
questions.
"It may be interpreted as further screening," Curry said. "But
we wanted to make sure he understood it. This kind of information
is easily
misinterpreted."
The state Department of Education keeps records of superintendent
salaries for
all 55 counties. But it does not maintain a file on
superintendents' contracts.