September 10, 2002; City of New Prague
9/10/2002 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:On July 22, 2002, IPAD received a letter dated July 17, 2002, from Patty Solheid, Administrative Services Coordinator for the City of New Prague. In her letter, Ms. Solheid asked the Commissioner to issue an opinion regarding the classification of certain data that the City maintains. A summary of the facts is as follows. Ms. Solheid wrote: ...We provide electric, water and sewer services to our customers in the New Prague area. While we do have strictly electric customers and water/sewer customers, the majority of our customers have all 3 services provided to them. ...Statue [sic] 13.685 states that electric customer data is considered to be private. Therefore, I'm questioning if I can send out the information on the customers that have all 3 services provided to them. Also, periodically, we have phone calls from other realtors inquiring what the water bill is for a particular customer so it can be included in their closing costs. We have been giving them their entire bill (electric included)....Or if a potential buyer or realtor calls and wants to know what the utilities are running for a specific house, is this also information that should not be given out? Issue:In her request for an opinion, Ms. Solheid asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:Minnesota Statutes section 13.685 classifies data on customers of municipal electric utilities as private (data on individuals) or nonpublic (data not on individuals). Although section 13.685 lists five situations in which these data can be released, none apply in the present case. Data about customers to whom a municipality provides water and sewer services are public pursuant to the general presumption in section 13.03, subdivision 1. The Commissioner has the following comments. If someone requested the names and addresses of all people to whom the City provides electric utility services, those data would not be accessible because they are private. Following this logic, if someone requested the names and addresses of all people to whom the City provides electric, water, and sewer services (as is the case before the Commissioner), the names and addresses of the people receiving electric services would not be accessible, even if those customers also receive water and sewer services. In other words, if customer X receives all three services, one of them being electric, her name and address are private. However, the names and addresses of customers receiving only water and sewer services are public. It is important to note that if the City maintains Social Security numbers, those data always are private pursuant to section 13.49. The Commissioner notes that although the result flowing from this analysis may seem somewhat absurd, the Legislature, in 1999, classified only data about municipal electric customers as not public. As introduced, the bill dealing with utility customer data would have classified all such data as not public. Legislative committees discussed classifying all data about municipal utility customers as not public but, in the end, the Legislature enacted the language in section 13.685, classifying only electric utility customer data as not public. In her opinion request, Ms. Solheid also inquired about situations in which someone asks for information about the amount of a particular utility bill for a particular customer. She wrote, ...we have phone calls from other realtors inquiring what the water bill is for a particular customer so it can be included in their closing costs. In such cases, if that person is receiving utility services other than electric, the customer data about him are public. However, if he is receiving electric utility services (with or without the addition of other utility services), the customer data about him are private. Ms. Solheid further asked about situations in which someone is looking for information about utilities for a particular house. Again, the same analysis applies. If the City is supplying electric utility services, all such customer data about that property are private. If the City is supplying only water and sewer utility services, the customer data about that property are public. Opinion:Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue that Ms. Solheid raised is as follows:
Signed:
David F. Fisher
Dated: September 10, 2002 |
Legislative authority and intent
Government Data
Municipal utility customer data
Municipal utility customer data (13.685 / 13.612)
