Anyone Have the Weather Forecast for Hell?

It started with a simple request: How much will Renee Foose make as the new deputy superintendent for the Baltimore County Public Schools system?

Patch wasn't even the first to ask the question. That honor belongs to Liz Bowie at The Baltimore Sun.

Not a contract or piece of paper. Just a few numbers. It's a request fielded routinely by innumerable state and county government agencies. Nearly every agency simply releases the number—no muss, no fuss.

But not Baltimore County schools. 

"We're not like everyone else," said schools system spokeswoman Phyllis Reese after I asked her why her agency requires a written Public Information Act request for the salary figure.

The request comes, coincidentally, during national Sunshine Week, a period set aside by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and other media to remind the public of the importance of laws such as the Maryland Open Meetings and Public Information Acts.

These laws ensure that government operations are open and accessible to the public. The law does not grant special privileges to the press and you won't find the words "reporter" or "journalist" or "media" in its text.

Reese said the school system has a policy requiring written requests for salary information. She could not provide a copy of that policy after Patch asked for it. Later, Reese said she wasn't "sure (the policy) was even written down."

Reese did forward an e-mail from Margaret-Ann F. Howie, the attorney for the schools system. In it, Howie copied and pasted a portion of the state Public Information Act.

The section she quotes states that "a person or governmental unit that wishes to inspect a public record shall submit a written application to the custodian." It goes on to add that a member of the public need not file a request if "the person or governmental unit seeks to inspect a public record listed by an official custodian."

In other words, if the agency knows the information is public then it should simply release it.

Reese, however, repeated several times that a written request was necessary to learn the salary. But if one doesn't want the contract, what document should be requested?

"The salary is the document," Reese said, adding that the salaries are private information related to employees.

Reese added that she would "write the number down on a piece of paper and give it to you" or type it into an e-mail, thus creating the document the public should request. She couldn't simply speak the number because she was concerned she might "make a mistake and misplace a decimal," she said.

Salaries as private information is not a position supported by the law, according to Assistant Attorney General Robert McDonald, the state's resident legal expert on public records laws.

McDonald said salaries of public officials and employees are not considered private or personnel records and are considered information that is available to any member of the public who pay those salaries with their taxes.

The Public Information Act, however, does not apply to questions.

"The law contemplates a request for a document," McDonald said, adding that the courts and the law generally define that as a photograph, video or other tangible document.

"It's really about documentary materials," McDonald said.

But the law cuts both ways.

A simple question doesn't trigger the Public Information Act.

But the public cannot use the act to get that question answered.

"There's no obligation to answer an informational question," McDonald said. "Except that the agency might want to stay on (the media's) good side."

McDonald said he was puzzled by any agency's decision to require a written request for salary information. When the attorney general's office provides training to government agencies around the state, the advice is to simply release information that is known to be public—something that is also in state law.

So that leaves us with that simple request we started with.

How much is the schools system paying Renee Foose?

Without a written request, the public will not know. It's a request Patch is not writing because we think government agencies should answer simple questions from the public.

Could we get the salary with a written request? Yes. But by that standard the school system could then require us—and you, the public—to submit a written request for all information they possess and residents pay for through taxes. 

Reese has been clear: without a written request "it will be a cold day in hell before you get the information," she said.