Union, school at odds over documents

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The local teacher's union and school officials are at it again this time over where the school wants union officials to inspect public documents.

Tom Payton, who handles public information matters for the McKinley County Federation of United School employees, said the district is now making union officials inspect public documents in the hall of central headquarters.

District officials, he said, are refusing to allow union officials the use of an office or a conference room to go through the reams of material that they have requested dealing with district financial matters.

Instead, a table has been placed next to the woman's restroom and that's where school officials want union officials to inspect the documents.

"It's embarrassing," he said.

He added that he suspects that this is the latest move by the district to make it as difficult as possible for union officials to inspect public documents, documents that the union has been trying to get the schools to release for several months.

When the union finally got the district to release the documents, Payton said he went over and talked to one of the secretaries in central office who showed him to a conference room and said he could use that room.

But once he got settled, he said, Chantal Irvin, one of the district's assistant superintendents, came in and demanded that he leave, saying that the school's superintendent, Karen White, said he had no right to use the conference room.

He protested and Irvin went to talk to other assistant superintendents. The first two, said Payton, said they never remembered White saying that. White was away from the office, Payton said. Finally, John Samford, the district's top financial official, said he heard White say that as well, Payton said.

White said later that the secretary should never have allowed union officials to use the conference room, since it is to be used only for meetings.

"She thought that he was planning to hold a meeting which is why she allowed him to use it," White said.

White added that union officials have been told that the conference room is used too much for them to have access to it and that they have the right to use the table in the hallway anytime they want.

She also rejected the possibility of allowing union officials to use the conference room when it is not booked for a meeting, saying that meetings are called at the spur of the moment all of the time and it would create problems if union officials were using the room.

Tabled
Union officials have said they would be willing to move out if a meeting was called but White said that also was unacceptable. "They have the table," she said. "They can use that."

There's some question as to whether the district is violating state law by doing this.

In an earlier letter from Roberta Joe, an assistant state attorney, the district was sharply criticized for numerous violations of the state public information laws in delaying release of public documents.

In that letter, she urged the district to take the approach of leaning on the side of those requesting the documents if there is any question about release or use of public documents.

In the Inspection of Public Records Act Compliance Guide, government officials are told they "must provide proper and reasonable opportunities to inspect public records."

"This does not mean that a request to inspect must take precedence over all other business of the public body. Rather, taking into account the office hours, available space, available personnel, the need to safeguard records and other legitimate concerns of a particular public body, a custodian must provide reasonable access to public records," the state law says.

In an example provide in the guidelines, state officials say that "it would be reasonable to ask the person to sit in a part of the office out of the main traffic flow" to view the documents.

A table in the main hallway of central headquarters is right in the middle of the traffic flow, said Payton, and the district should provide some other place for union officials to inspect the documents.

But White said that the central headquarters is overcrowded as it is and there is no other space but the hallway for union officials to use.

FOG's opinion
Bob Johnson, director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, the agency that acts as a watchdog for inspection of public documents, sides with the school district in this matter.

"The school district is not required to allow them to use a conference room and can put them wherever they want," Johnson said, adding that the district could appoint someone to monitor the union officials while they look over the documents.

He did side with the union on another dispute that they have with the district.

The district has a policy of charging $1 a page for every document that they make under the Public Inspection Act.

Union officials say this is too high, especially with the amount of documents that they have requested to inspect. They have proposed bringing in their own copier and using them but said that's not possible if they have to use the hallway table since their are no electrical outlets in the hallway.

"We could probably use extension cords to go outside the building to hook up to a car battery but that would cause a disruption," said Payton.

White said there is no way the district is going to allow the union to bring in their own copying machine. If they want copies, they can pay for them $1 a page like everyone else, she said.

But Johnson said the district is misinterpreting state law and should know better.

State law allows the district to charge a maximum of $1 a page but the district is allowed only to charge what it actually costs them to make the copy.

"If they want to charge $1 a page, they must be able to show that it actually costs them that much to make a copy," Johnson said.

There was a court case involving that issue and government officials came up with all kinds of expenses, including the hourly wage of the office's top official, to justify the $1 charge.

The court, however, said the government agency could not use the wages of personnel in determining the cost to make the copy just the cost of the paper and toner and such.

"The actual cost is probably about three cents a page and certainly it's not more than a nickel a page," said Johnson. "This is what the district should be charging."

The union has sent in a letter to the district asking them to justify the $1 charge but so far has not received an answer.