School News

Elmont School District agrees to information request

Reclaim New York sued to obtain expense records

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The Elmont School District has agreed to comply with nonprofit transparency group Reclaim New York’s Freedom of Information Law request for records of the district’s 2014 expenditures after initially refusing to disclose the information.

Reclaim New York filed a lawsuit in Nassau County Supreme Court on June 7. In addition to releasing its expenditures, the district has also agreed to pay Reclaim’s legal fees.

“Their agreement to pay legal fees, and finally make the requested documents public, is an admission that the school district was wrong to deny repeated requests for basic spending data,” said Brandon Muir, executive director of Reclaim New York. “It is also a victory for government transparency for every New Yorker. Our transparency laws were written to ensure no New Yorker is forced to spend time and money just to find out how their own tax dollars are being spent.”

The district is maintaining, however, that it did not withhold public information. The district turned down the FOIL request on the grounds that it did not have the information in the format requested, and that private information, including Social Security numbers, was included on expenditure documents, school officials said.

“We were not trying to hide anything at all,” said Superintendent Al Harper. “We just could not give it to them in the format that they requested. … [B]ut we are open — we are a district that is audited on a regular basis.”

Reclaim New York submitted more than 250 FOIL requests for records of 2014 expenditures to local government entities on Long Island, as it plans to do around the state. Of the 57 entities that were listed as non-compliant, 18 were in Nassau County. Nine were school districts. Five districts ignored repeated FOIL requests, the group said, and four, including Elmont and District 13, denied them.

“We of course are an open book,” Harper said. “We gave them exactly what we had, however it was not in the format that they requested.”

According to Reclaim New York spokesman Doug Kellog, by filing a FOIL request for an ordinary report, Reclaim was attempting to illustrate how difficult the process would be for an ordinary citizen trying to obtain public documents.

“It is unfortunate that it took a lawsuit and thousands of dollars in legal bills for the Elmont School District to agree to release information the public is entitled to see about how they spend taxpayer money,” Muir said. “As Reclaim expands this unprecedented, statewide transparency project, this case is a positive example for other government entities, and helps empower more New Yorkers to hold government accountable.”