Open and shut case
Posted: Sunday, April 29, 2012 6:00 am | Updated: 7:00 pm, Fri Apr 27, 2012.
Morrisville School District is in violation of the open records law.
Here’s a suggestion for the chief educator at the Morrsiville School District: Do your homework!
Among the varied duties of Superintendent Bill Ferrara is satisfying requests for public records. The state has a law regarding such records as well as an agency to enforce the law. That would be the the Office of Open Records. It has a website on which the uninformed can go to find out all they need or want to know about the law. We strongly urge Ferrara to do so — because he appears to be breaking the law.
If you missed the story this week, we reported that Morrisville teachers and school board negotiators are in the throes of working out a new contract. So we naturally figured that folks would want to know what’s in the old contract so they can compare and contrast. At a time when school districts are under immense financial pressure thanks to state budget cuts and a mushrooming public pension crisis, school officials have to be extremely cost conscious. And taxpayers, who foot the bills run up by school boards, have to make sure that they are.
To that end, we asked the school district for a copy of the old contract. We were, to put it mildly, surprised when that request was denied and denied and denied. On what grounds? we asked. Said Ferrara: “I do not want the appearance that the district is negotiating through the press.”
It was a hackneyed response invoked by public officials everywhere. But that’s beside the point. By grounds we meant legal grounds, which isn’t what Ferrara provided. He told us what he didn’t want, not what the law wants.
Calling Ferrara’s explanation “insufficient as a matter of law,” Melissa Bevan Melewsky, an attorney for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, said, “the current teacher contract should be readily available to any interested person who requests it. The school’s response is simply an inappropriate barrier to accessing a clearly public record.”
In a further attempt to access that clearly public record, the Courier Times on April 20 filed a Right-To-Know request.
Meanwhile, Superintendent Ferrara sent us a letter stating that the district was “utilizing 30 days to research’’ the newspaper’s request. Again, no legal grounds were provided for denying our original request; likewise, no legal grounds were provided for invoking a 30-day delay in considering our formal Right-To-Know request.
Indeed, the law does not provide 30 days to do homework. According to the law, as explained by attorney Melewsky, a public agency has five days, not 30, to research a records request, although the law does cite seven reasons why additional time to satisfy a request might be granted. In Morrisville’s case, none of those exceptions were cited. The district also did not comply with other stipulations when the 30-day delay is invoked, including: sending a notice that a request is being reviewed; citing the reason for the review; indicating a reasonable date by which a response will be provided; and providing an estimate of applicable fees.
Morrisville school officials can review that and more by going to openrecords.state.pa.us. We urge Morrisville citizens to do so as well. While they’re at it, they should click on “Citizen’s Guide” and follow the steps to file a Right-To-Know request. Might be a good thing to get to know considering the school district’s apparent fondness for secrecy.
18 comments:
From an earlier post under Teachers' Contract up in Morrisville thread.
"Otherwise, i fear their recalcitrance and unlawfulness will be unilaterally negotiated in the press, by the press."
And ... ACTION!
Any questions?
You could see this coming from a mile away. Way to go, Superintendent Ferrara. You brought needless bad press to Morrisville. Great legal assist from Solicitor Profy too.
Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
Proverbs 3:27
Wasn't this district in violation of the Open Record law a few years ago?
The Hellmann 6 Point Plan that turned out not to exist?
its a good thing there are no consequences other than getting your a$$ and the town's dragged thru the newspaper mud for no damn good reason
Will someone on the S.B. command this knucklehead and the lawyer to do the right thing??? They're embarrassing us throughout the region.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwBirf4BWew
1 comment:
MV Watcher posted at 12:14 pm on Sun, Apr 29, 2012.
Posts: 25
This district was warned by the Open Records Office a few years ago because they didn't understand and follow the law and they are still not following the law.
Did anybody else hear there's an 18 1/2 page gap in Ferrara's copy of the contract?
Why isn't this contract posted to the MSD website in the first place. Don't the citizens, those footing the bill, get a chance to see how their money gets spent? Why the veil of secrecy? Wasn't this a public doc when it was first enacted?
Wouldn't there have been a chance to review and comment at that time? Wasn't this contract done under the Sandy Gibson board? Wouldn't some of those members have a copy on file? I think if anyone does, it should be posted and hotlinked in here. Wouldn't that be a hoot? I wonder what Mr. Ferrara would say to that? And WTF is he thinking here? His responses can only make everyone more curious about whatever it is he wants to hide. Can he really be that unaware of basic PR? Or maybe he's sly as a fox, and he wants a lot of scrutiny on this, and this is his way of making everyone sit up and pay attention. I wonder what the SOC crowd is thinking about this. He was their creature, so it makes one think this has something to do with their shenanigans. What skeletons lurk?
Good post. I think the contract is from 2006. I may even have a copy of it somewhere. I don't know how to hotlink stuff here. I didn't think it was possible, but if it is and someone shows me how, I will.
I think Mr. Ferrara wants to control the message. I can understand the impulse, but I don't think the way to do it is by jerking around the BCCT on a document that's clearly public info.
Based on Neshaminy's ongoing contract saga, it seems like the main 2 people slogging it out in public are the Neshaminy Federation of Teachers (NFT) Pres. Louise Boyd, and the School Board Pres., Ritchie Webb.
Their respective equivalents in Morrisville are Drew King and John DeWilde. So far, I haven't heard much of anything from them on the ongoing contract negotiations. As it should be at this stage.
Here's a link to the current contract:
http://www.publicschoolspending.com/pennsylvania/morrisville-borough-sd-teachers-contract-2006-12/
Bless you! Thank GOD!!!!!!!
How DARE you release public information to the public! That's the school's job not to do!
Do you know what the pushishment is for that???
So if Anon was able to google the contract why can't the slurrier?
The "slurrier" isn't a very good newspaper and the reporter isn't very resourceful or intrepid?
Does that excuse Ferrara and Profy from trampling on Open Records Laws? If some unknown person can dig it up on the internet the district doesn' thave to follow the laws?
the link goes to an unsigned contract, if it is not signed it is not a legal document or considered the final deal
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