January 2, 1997; Ramsey County
1/2/1997 10:14:43 AM
This is an opinion of the Commissioner of Administration issued pursuant to section 13.072 of Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13 - the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. It is based on the facts and information available to the Commissioner as described below.
Facts and Procedural History:For purposes of simplification, the information presented by the citizen who requested this opinion and the response from the government entity with which the citizen disagrees are presented in summary form. Copies of the complete submissions are on file at the offices of PIPA and, with the exception of any data that are not public, are available for public access. On November 12, 1996, PIPA received a fax dated November 8, 1996, from Simcha Plisner. In his fax, Mr. Plisner requested that the Commissioner issue an advisory opinion regarding his access to certain government data maintained by Ramsey County. In response to Mr. Plisner's request, PIPA, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to Terry Schutten, Manager of Ramsey County. The purposes of this letter dated November 15, 1996, were to inform Mr. Schutten of Mr. Plisner's request and to ask him or Ramsey County's attorney to provide information or support for Ramsey County's position. On December 5, 1996, PIPA received a faxed response from Gary Davis, Assistant Ramsey County Attorney. A summary of the facts presented by Mr. Plisner is as follows. On October 25, 1996, Mr. Plisner contacted the Ramsey County Public Works Department to speak with staff person Terry Noonan. Mr. Plisner was advised that Mr. Noonan had left for the day. At that point, Mr. Plisner contacted the office of the county manager and requested access to all data which showed or demonstrated that Mr. Noonan had a right or lacked the right to take the time off; and if he did have the right to be off, I wished to review the data which indicated that he had followed county procedures concerning making the request for the time-off and that he followed through with all official procedures including any paperwork, etc. Later that day, Mr. Plisner spoke with someone in the County Attorney's office who had been asked to respond to Mr. Plisner's call. Mr. Plisner was advised by this person that he (the County Attorney staff ) would get back to Mr. Plisner. As of November 8, 1996, Mr. Plisner had received no response from Ramsey County. In his response to Mr. Plisner's opinion request, Mr. Davis wrote: The [assistant county attorney] attempted to make calls to Mr. T.N. and others to ascertain the facts behind this particular request. He later attempted to contact Mr. Plisner again but Mr. Plisner was not at his office, nor did Mr. Plisner attempt to return the call. The attorney inadvertently did not contact Mr. Plisner again due to an onslaught of other business that required his immediate attention at the same time as Mr. Plisner's request was pending. Mr. Davis further wrote that at the time of Mr. Plisner's request, only private personnel data had been created relating to the employee's request for time off. However, three days later, the daily time report for payroll purposes was filed for the time off taken by the employee on October 25, 1996. Mr. Davis stated, This document was created as part of the usual timesheet report process and is public data pursuant to Minn. Stat. 13.43, Subd. 2 (a) (8). Ramsey is willing to furnish Mr. Plisner with the timesheet report if he desires it....In summation, there was no public data legitimately available to Mr. Plisner on October 25, 1996 that met his request. Issue:In his request for an opinion, Mr. Plisner asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Section 13.43, subdivision 2, certain data about employees of government entities are public. Specific to Mr. Plisner's request, clause (8) of subdivision 2 (a), sets forth those data relating to the time sheets of public employees that are public. In relevant part, clause (8) states, [the following data are public] payroll time sheets or other comparable data that are only used to account for employee's work time for payroll purposes, except to the extent that release of time sheet data would reveal the employee's reasons for the use of sick or other medical leave or other not public data... Section 13.03 states that upon request, a person shall be permitted to inspect public government data at reasonable times and places. Section 13.03 also states that such requests must be complied with in an appropriate and prompt manner. In addition, pursuant to subdivision 3 of Section 13.03, if a government entity determines that the data being requested are classified so as to deny the requesting person access, the entity must so inform the requesting person either orally at the time of the request or in writing as soon thereafter as possible. Further, if the data requested do not exist at the time of the request, the government entity should so inform the data requestor. According to Mr. Davis, when Mr. Plisner made his data request on October 25, 1996, the only data in existence which related to Mr. Plisner's request were private data. Public data relating to the request did not become available until three days later. Mr. Davis wrote, The data in existence on October 25, 1996 relating to the employee's request for time off on October 25, 1996 was not data that are used only to account for employee's work time for payroll purposes' and therefore, was private data that would not have been available to Mr. Plisner at the time of his request on October 25, 1996. Thus, it appears that of the data requested by Mr. Plisner, some were private data and some were not in existence. However, Ramsey County staff were aware that additional public data relating to Mr. Plisner's request would be created in a manner of days. To fully comply with the requirements imposed by Section 13.03, Ramsey County could have 1) promptly informed Mr. Plisner that some of the data he requested were classified as private, and 2) promptly informed Mr. Plisner that some of the data he requested did not exist. In addition, County staff could have informed Mr. Plisner that public data relating to his request would be available for inspection within a few days. Mr. Plisner and Mr. Davis presented slightly different fact scenarios. According to Mr. Plisner, he received no communication from Ramsey County, except for a telephone conversation on October 25, 1996, in which he informed [the County's attorney] as to what I was seeking. According to Mr. Davis, an attorney for the County attempted to make calls to ascertain the facts behind the request and later attempted to contact Mr. Plisner again but Mr. Plisner was not at his office, nor did Mr. Plisner attempt to return the call. Mr. Davis further wrote, The attorney inadvertently did not contact Mr. Plisner again due to an onslaught of other business that required his immediate attention at the same time as Mr. Plisner's request was pending. Mr. Davis also wrote, To the extent that Mr. Plisner was not informed that he was not entitled to any private data in existence on October 25, 1996...such failure to inform Mr. Plisner was merely inadvertent, caused by the heavy workload of other business... Although there is some dispute as to whether Ramsey County attempted to contact Mr. Plisner a second time, there appears to be no dispute that Mr. Plisner did not receive a response, i.e., that some data were private and other data did not exist, in regard to his request. Therefore, Ramsey County did not respond appropriately to Mr. Plisner's October 25, 1996, request for access to data. On behalf of Ramsey County, Mr. Davis did state that the County is currently in possession of public data relating to Mr. Plisner's request and is willing to furnish Mr. Plisner with the timesheet report if he desires it. Perhaps Mr. Plisner might, at this point, renew his request for access to all public data relating to Mr. Noonan's being off of work on October 25, 1996. Opinion:Based on the correspondence in this matter, my opinion on the issue raised by Mr. Plisner is as follows:
Signed:
Elaine S. Hansen
Dated: January 2, 1997 |
Personnel data
Response to data requests
Time sheets or payroll
Inappropriate response, generally
