Morhaim to Schools System: Release Salary and Policy

A Baltimore County delegate is asking county schools system officials for the salary of a newly hired deputy superintendent, and for related policies dealing with the release of salary and other public information.

Del. Dan Morhaim, in an e-mail he shared with Patch, asked the officials for "comments, reaction, clarification" after reading a recent post on .

Morhaim, a Democrat, is chairman of a subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee that deals with issues related to the state Open Meetings and Public Information Acts.

"It has been our commitment to create greater transparency and information about government operations to the public, and this has been reflected in the legislation the committee has enacted," Morhaim wrote.

In the March 16 e-mail, Morhaim requests "the salary information and related documents for Renee Foose, although I think it would better if you simply provided that to the media as requested."

The e-mail also requests "a copy of any policy(ies) the BCPS has about releasing information of this type or any other."

The Baltimore Sun and Patch both asked Phyllis Reese, a spokeswoman for the county schools system, for Foose's salary.

The salaries of individual government employees are public by law. Typically, state and county agencies release the information immediately upon request.

and said the schools system would not answer unless a written request under the Public Information Act, which covers only documents, was filed.

Liz Bowie, an education reporter at The Baltimore Sun, filed a written request a month ago, according to her story, which is online, and in the paper this morning. The county schools system released the information yesterday.

Patch made a request for the salary during several interviews between March 11 and 16. Reese and schools system officials have not released the figure to Patch.

In an interview, Reese said the school system policy was to require a written request. When asked for a copy of that policy Reese could not provide one and later said she wasn't "sure (the policy) was even written down."