Asking the South Whidbey School District for public records comes with a new price tag these days — your name, the information sought, and the time and cost to fulfill the request posted for all the world to see on the district’s website.

Beginning late last month, such details were included in a specially created document linked to online school board agendas. The move comes in the wake of years of litigation with a single Clinton man, a former teacher who officials say has cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and who has besieged administrators with what school leaders characterize as broad and time consuming information requests.

Top district officials deny the online posting policy is retaliatory, but rather is meant to keep the school board informed about the burden requests, both legitimate and superfluous, place on employees.

“It’s really just to give the board the transparency of knowing where staff is spending its time and resources,” said Jo Moccia, district superintendent.

School board members add, however, that there are problems with the state’s Open Public Records Act, specifically that its lack of limitations make it ripe for abuse. Making public who is asking for documents, and the cost to district taxpayers, is a way to address the issue. Those with reasonable requests have nothing to hide, they say.

“I find it to be the perfect response. … If someone has a legitimate request they should own it,” said Director Linda Racicot.

“We’re just making people responsible,” echoed Director Rocco Gianni, a board member and an advocate for the inclusion of such information online.

“With rights come responsibility,” he said.

Legal expenses

The move is tied into ongoing litigation with Eric Hood, whose employment contract was not renewed by the district in 2010. Hood sued, claiming he was let go without cause and later sued again for alleged public records violations. He is presently fighting two separate battles with the school district, one in U.S. District Court and another in Island County Superior Court.

Most recently he filed suit against Langley and Mayor Fred McCarthy in Island County Superior Court for alleged public records act violations (see story on page 5). McCarthy is Moccia’s predecessor and was school district superintendent in 2010 when Hood’s contract was not renewed.

Hood declined to be interviewed for this story, or the story about his lawsuit with McCarthy.

Racicot, Gianni and Moccia also declined to talk about the ongoing litigation, but each noted that the cost of such legal battles and complying with records requests over the past four years has been expensive, and played a role in the decision to create a special document highlighting who is making requests and their cost.

The exact figure remains unclear, but according to Moccia the district’s legal bills are “in the neighborhood of $400,000.”

“That’s not all one case, but much of it is Hood,” she said.

The legal budget for the 2014-2015 school year alone is $175,000, all of which is general fund money that could otherwise be directed toward students. That’s big bucks, said Moccia, and when you’re spending that kind of money on legal fees, people want to know why.

Subsequently, Hood’s records requests have attracted the attention of the board and has led some to say the situation is a clear example of how the state’s public records act can be misused.

“When it goes on and on just to tie an agency up, I have a problem with that,” Gianni said.

“This is $400,000 grand that didn’t go to our kids,” he added.

School officials, however, aren’t without fault. A portion of that money includes $7,150 that a judge ordered the district to pay Hood earlier this year for the “untimely production of documents.” When asked about the ruling, Moccia declined to address the issue citing ongoing litigation.

Also, of the district’s 10 records requests in 2014 Hood made only four. Moccia did address that, saying the number of requests isn’t necessarily the trouble — it’s the scope. Broad requests, which she said are often made unintentionally, become massive undertakings that can take months to compile, but school officials don’t have any option but to comply with state law.

And sometimes, people don’t even collect the records they request.

“I don’t want to withhold records, I just can’t keep up with records requests,” she said.

An old problem

South Whidbey’s challenges with the state’s record laws are nothing new, as small junior taxing districts and large municipalities alike have grappled with the problem for years.

While most are able to keep up with the demand placed on resources, in rare and extreme cases it’s led some public agencies to near collapse. The tiny Eastern Washington town of Mesa considered bankruptcy or disincorporation in 2009 after a judge ruled it had violated the state’s records laws, according to the Seattle Times. Fines made up nearly one-third of the town’s annual budget, the newspaper reported.

The burden of the records act is enough of an issue that’s it’s led to a series of proposed bills at the state Legislature, the most recent of which were considered in 2012 and in 2013. They sought to limit the reach of the open public records act and lessen the burden on struggling governments, particularly when it came to those deemed to be “harassing” a public agency. Among its sponsors was Mary Margaret Haugen, the former and longtime state senator in District 10.

Open government advocates objected, saying the proposal would dull the effectiveness of the records act to the benefit of government officials. According to a Seattle Times story, they responded specifically to the problem of “abusive requestors,” saying public officials have several means of combating the problem, from asking for clarity to releasing information in pieces.

The bill was not passed in 2012, or in 2013, but the legislature did request Washington State University’s The William D. Ruckelshaus Center conduct a study on how records requests impact local governments.

Whidbey’s solution

While legislative changes have yet to occur, South Whidbey school officials say they aren’t alone in their decision to publicly identify requestors. The district has had the policy framework in place since early 2014 but only moved forward after Gianni suggested they use the same reporting form as the Monroe School District. Also, it waited until district attorneys had confirmed the practice was in fact legal and didn’t breech state privacy laws.

The exact number of school districts around the state that post such information could not be confirmed. Calls to the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction were not returned by press time, and Michael Wilson, communications director for the Washington State School Directors Association, wrote in an email to The Record that they don’t track who does it and who doesn’t.

Officials with the Coupeville and Oak Harbor school districts did confirm, however, that neither identifies people who make records requests, but that they aren’t afflicted with large and numerous records requests.

“If we get four in a year, that’s a lot,” said Janet Wodjenski, public records officer for Coupeville. “Some years we don’t get any at all.”

She added that she could see how someone with a “bee in their bonnet” could create a large workload, and that she doesn’t see any problem with including such information in online board agendas because of the possible impacts to district business.

Lance Gibbon, superintendent in Oak Harbor, didn’t weigh in on whether such a practice was appropriate, but he did say he can see how large requests could be problematic. Despite few requests, last year an out-of-state company asked for information concerning district supply orders for commercial purposes. It amounted to 54,000 pages of records, all of which had to be reviewed by an employee.

“It took one person five days of work,” Gibbon said.

Nancy Krier, open government ombudsman for the Attorney General’s Office, confirmed that the City of Kirkland is also posting records requests online. The policy is perfectly legal, as anyone who asks for public documents becomes a subject for disclosure to the records act themselves.

“It’s all public information,” Krier said.

She added that her office recommends governments post online the most commonly requested documents as a tool to help reduce the number of requests.

Finding a balance

Moccia said school officials, including the board, value transparency and want to supply the all the records the public is legally entitled to. But with state law being so easy to abuse, school districts and other small governments can be at the mercy of those with a grudge, and that’s not the purpose behind the Washington sunshine rules, Moccia said.

“The impact of the act is transparency, I believe that,” she said. “I’m just not convinced the impact of that is understood.”

Racicot agreed, adding that a balance needs to be struck between transparency and reasonableness, especially when it comes to education.

“It does have a big impact and ripple effect on our children,” Racicot said.