Deputy Superintendent's Salary is Public for Some

A county school official continued Saturday to refuse to release to Patch the salary of a newly hired deputy superintendent, even after the figure was provided to another media outlet.

Phyllis Reese, a Baltimore County Public Schools spokeswoman, said prior to a meeting of the school board Saturday that she would not release the salary of Renee Foose unless Patch filed a written request.

Reese said she would release the figure "provided that we receive the information of request."

When asked if that meant she was denying the verbal request because it was not written, Reese responded, "I didn't say that. I said when you send in your request we will be very happy to give you that information."

(Listen to Reese's interview.)

Patch requested the information on March 11. Reese has repeated that the school system will not release the salary without a written request, even though government employee salaries are public by law. Other county and state agencies routinely release similar information immediately without a request made in writing.

In an interview Tuesday, Reese was asked why the school system requires a written request.

"We're not like everyone else," Reese said.

On Saturday, Reese repeated her claim that the requirement for a written request was —a policy that earlier in the week she said she wasn't "sure [the policy] was even written down."

When asked for a copy of that policy, Reese said on Saturday that "it is a procedure."

"I am new to the school system—a year in—and it has been a policy—not so much a policy but a procedure—that the system has followed," she said.

When the request for a written policy was repeated, Reese responded, "I will check."

The school system's refusal to release the salary publicly and Reese's comments this week have drawn the ire of state lawmakers and board members.

Sen. Kathy Klausmeier and Del. John Olszewski Jr., chairs of the county's Senate and House delegations respectively, at a time when the system is considering eliminating nearly 200 teaching positions. In that same letter, they called the withholding of salary information "deeply concerning, at best."

The issue was part of a school board retreat in Towson on Saturday. That portion of the meeting was closed to the public.

On Thursday, the school system, in response to a request from The Baltimore Sun, said Foose would earn $214,000 in her new position. The newspaper reported that it had requested the information in writing a month earlier.

In a story Saturday, Reese attributed the delay to the fact that "our small law office had to go through 17,000 names to retrieve the answer to the Sunpapers' request."

Reese explained why the system would not release the salary to Patch despite making it public to another media outlet two days earlier.

"Because that's the procedure of Baltimore County Public Schools, to require a written request for information," Reese said.