Victory! Line Item Budget Posted on Ogden City Web Site

Ogden City officials seem to be now belatedly doing what they "ought" to have done months,  if not years ago

Whoa! Talk about arguably too-long-coming, common-sense political victories... as we now learn from the '"blog offshoot" of Dan Schroeder's totally squeaky-clean Ogden Ethics Project website that Ogden City officials are even now belatedly doing what they "ought" to have done months (if not years) ago in the first place:

• Line Item Budget Posted on Ogden City Web Site

Yes, indeed.  You can confirm with your own eyes that the formerly secret line item budget, which Dan S. "pried out" through an effort involving blood, sweat and tears, is now right "up there" (in two parts) on the Ogden City website:

• Ogden City budget, Fiscal Year 2013 – 2014

So now that you've read all about it, whaddaya think, O Gentle Ones?

And whatever you do... don't let the cat get yer tongues...

Dan Schroeder Files Appeal in His Ongoing GRAMA Water Utilities Record Production Request

Grab some Orville Redenbackers and pull up your barcaloungers, folks, as Ogden's numero uno Ogden City government watchdog is unleashed upon bumbling Ogden City bureaucrats once again

Unleashed once again

In the wake of all the hoopla over Dan Schroeder's interim success in obtaining Ogden City's line item budget through his Ogden Budget/Water Utility GRAMA Requests, we'll reveal this morning that Ogden's most tireless Ogden City government watchdog now gears up for battle in a second leg of his ongoing government transparency quest.

As Weber County Forum readers who are following this story will recall, Ogden City officials had initially  refused to grant Dan access to two collections of city records: 1) Ogden City’s line-item budget, and the 2) the City’s utility customers' water use data. Upon receiving these materials according to terms of a stipulated agreement with Chief Deputy City Attorney Mara Brown, Dr. Schroeder has now however carefully examined these materials and found that while the City's line item budget record record production apparently conformed to the parties' "settlement" agreement, production of the City's utility customers' water use data did not.  In this connection we'll link a copy of a letter transmitted to Ogden City Recorder Tracy Hansen yesterday, enumerating the defects in Ogden City's utility customers' water use data record production, and formally appealing  the "city’s inadequate response" to his "records request dated 10 January 2013":

• Letter: Appeal of inadequate response to GRAMA request of 10 January 2013

Grab some Orville Redenbackers and pull up your barcaloungers, folks, as Ogden's numero uno Ogden City government watchdog is unleashed upon bumbling Ogden City bureaucrats once again.

SLC-Weekly: Activist Talks About Bringing Ogden Budget Out of the Shadows

Sodden question: When (if ever) will our home-town newspaper, the Standard-Examiner, get off its derriere and devote some ink to this story?

We have more news this morning concerning Ogden City political watchdog Dan Schroeder's herculean effort to pry Ogden City's line-item budget by means of Utah's Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA) statutes this morning, as Salt Lake City Weekly provides additional public information about the details of Schroeders' several months-long government transparency quest:

• Activist Talks About Bringing Ogden Budget Out of the Shadows

For the first time during the public reporting of this story, SL-Weekly reporter Eric Peterson sheds light upon the question of why Ogden City at first refused to provide an electronic PDF copy (or alternatively an original database data file) of the originally-requested document, but then later "insisted on printing out the document and charging Schroeder 25 cents a page, for $169 in total printing costs," even though such an electronic copy could have been easily generated from the electronic "source" of the "printed" text version which was already "maintained by a city comptroller":

Ogden city administrator and spokesman Mark Johnson, however, said that the city resisted releasing the budget at first because they were unaware that there was a complete, printed-out version of the line-item budget in their possession. In researching the appeal, they discovered there was one maintained by a city comptroller. Johnson says the city was still reviewing the legality of the document when Schroeder sought to bring in the state records ombudsman to the discussion and so they decided not to participate in mediation.

As for why they chose to print the record out and charge $169, Johnson writes via e-mail that that decision was made “so that the city could keep track of the record provided and reduce the chance that the document could be manipulated.”

Paranoid?

That's right, folks, Ogden City Administrator Mark Johnson's level of paranoia has ascended to the point where he (says he) believes (with a perfectly straight face) that Dan Schroeder, the very founder of the Ogden Ethics Project (and we are not making this up), might be capable of unethically "jiggering" the data.

Professor Schroeder has his own views on the city's ham-handed document production strategy, of course:

“I think it’s important if you are requesting documents from the government not to take up inordinate amounts of public employees’ time,” Schroeder says. “But when they insist on doing extra work so as to charge extra for it, that’s when I think something’s wrong.”

Notably, this story, which has all the makings of a David v. Goliath allegory, has been reported not once, but twice by the Salt Lake Tribune, and now, of course by SLC-Weekly.  Likewise, we've covered this story in depth on Weber County Forum from nearly day one. There's been not a peep, however from the Standard-Examiner, even though this locally-important story has been unfolding, as it were, right under the Standard's very journalistic nose.

It's in this context that we ask the sodden question:

When (if ever) will our home-town newspaper, the Standard-Examiner (which has been creepily silent on this story), get off its derriere and devote some ink to this story?

Given the Standard's careful inattention to this story, a cynic would conclude that the Standard (and Ogden City) may still have something to hide, yes?

Added Bonus Query: Ainnit about time that Ogden City issued Dan a full refund, along with a contrite mea culpa apology?

Ogden City Line-Item Budget Released to Public - Updated

Caldwell Administration relents: Document finally obtained after two-month delay and $169 fee

The following news release appeared yesterday on the Ogden Ethics Blog, which we'll cross-post here as a follow-up to Dan Schroeder's earlier reports on his recent Ogden Line-item Budget/Water Utility GRAMA requests:

Ogden City Line-Item Budget Released to Public

In an effort to promote greater transparency in Ogden City’s finances, the Ogden Ethics Project has obtained and posted a copy of the city’s detailed line-item budget. Interested citizens can now download a copy of this document from the OEC website's Resources and Document Access page.

As far as we can determine, no such document has ever before been released to the public. According to Assistant City Attorney Mara Brown, the line-item budget was not widely disseminated even within the city administration, and was not shared with the city council or its staff.

Ogden’s official budget document is posted on the city’s web site but is far less detailed. To give just one example, whereas the official budget breaks down the city’s golf-course-related expenditures into just ten major categories, the line-item budget breaks these down further into more than 100 sub-categories, with staffing, supplies, utilities, and other expenses assigned to either El Monte or Mt. Ogden Golf Course and further broken down between the grounds and pro shops.

For reasons that remain unclear, the city administration was reluctant to release the line-item budget document. A formal request for it, filed pursuant to the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act, was denied on January 9. The city then rejected repeated attempts to discuss or negotiate the denial. Finally, during a formal appeal hearing before the city’s Records Review Board, the administration agreed to release a copy of the document—but only in printed form, at a total cost of $169 (25 cents per page). The administration refused to provide an electronic copy of the document because, in Brown’s words, “we are able to track it as a record if it’s in print format” and because an electronic copy “can be manipulated.”

In total, obtaining a copy of the line-item budget required about a dozen hours of personal time spent over a period of two months. The printed pages have, of course, now been scanned and processed with optical character recognition software to facilitate searching.
The present version of the line-item budget includes actual revenue and expense information from fiscal years 2011 and 2012, plus budget numbers for fiscal years 2012 and 2013. Soon the Ogden City Council will begin its consideration of the FY 2014 budget. We hope that the council will demand to see line-item detail during that process, and that the administration will provide that detail promptly upon request.

We believe that everyone will agree that it's quite encouraging to learn that the Ogden City Mayoral Administration has now finally backed off on what seemed to be knee-jerk opposition to these very basic public document requests; and we'll of course continue to follow this story as it continues to develop.

"Bottom line," of course, we'll be looking forward to some ultimate reconciliation between those revenues which are being generated by Ogden City's 2012 "upside down" water rates revisions, as compared to the dollars which are actually being applied, or NOT being applied (as the case may be), to legitimate Ogden City water utility "overhead," (which would include but not be limited to underlying and currently existing water utility bond payments), of course.

Update 4/4/13 11:43 a.m.:  We've now learned this morning that the Salt Lake Tribune's Cathy McKitrick is all over this story too:

• Ogden records battle finally yields 676 pages of results

Spot-on comment from Councilwoman Wicks: "Councilwoman Amy Wicks said that she and other Council members do not receive the budget digitally, adding that citizens shouldn’t have to file a GRAMA request and pay a lot of money to get those documents." 

Sadly however, the (Ogden) Standard-Examiner continues to turn an entirely blind eye to this important government transparency story, which, weirdly enough, continues to unfold inexplicably un-noticed right under its very own journalistic nose, so to speak.

Go figure.

One GRAMA Dispute Settled, Another Tabled

Caldwell administration’s obstructionism continues

By Dan Schroeder

During the previously scheduled hearing of the Ogden Records Review Board yesterday afternoon, assistant city attorney Mara Brown agreed to provide me with a copy of the city’s line-item budget, though only in hard-copy format and at a cost of 25 cents per page (approximately $168 total).

In a second hearing, the Board postponed a decision on whether to grant access to water use data and other utility customer information, which the city administration has refused to provide.  The Board will reconvene at 1:00 pm next Tuesday, February 26, to deliberate and reach a decision in that matter.

The city’s position regarding the line-item budget continues to baffle me, but in the interest of resolving that dispute I elected to accept the settlement offer. During the hearing Ms. Brown stated that even though it might be easier for the city to provide the 672-page document in electronic form, the administration is unwilling to do so. The reasons she gave for this position made so little sense that I hesitate to try to repeat them until I’ve listened to a recording of her words.

Of course, a hard copy of the line-item budget will be much harder to redistribute. Still, I intend to scan it and post a copy online. It should really be posted on the city’s own web site, right next to the official, much less detailed, budget document.

During the discussion of the line-item budget, Ms. Brown and Comptroller Laurie Johnson portrayed this document as something that few eyes have ever seen. They stated that even the city council staff are not provided with a copy of it, although the administration staff keep a copy at hand, for their personal reference, during the council’s budget meetings. It seems likely, therefore, that the unveiling of the line-item budget will be educational not just to the public but also to the city council itself. I expect to have it within a couple of weeks.

Ms. Brown offered no concessions, however, on the utility customer data. First she attempted to mischaracterize my request, claiming that I was asking not for the data itself but for a specific compiled report made from it, which does not exist. With considerable effort, I think I managed to clarify my request and convince the Board that the data itself is a genuine public record. But they seemed hesitant to require the city to extract the data from the database, believing either that GRAMA doesn’t require this (which is false) or that the extraction process would be too difficult (which is also false, as well as irrelevant).

I’ll provide an update after the Board reconvenes next Tuesday.

Caldwell Administration Withholds Budget and Utility Records

Appeal hearing scheduled for Tuesday afternoon

by Dan Schroeder

In a move reminiscent of the previous administration, Ogden city officials are refusing to grant access to two collections of city records: the city’s line-item budget, and the city’s data on water use by utility customers.

In both cases, the city’s principal rationale for denying access is that the records are stored in electronic databases.

I requested these records as part of my ongoing effort to understand the city’s budget in general, and utility operations in particular. Readers may recall that a year ago I immersed myself in the utility rate revision process. Among other things, I discovered that the city has been using the utility operations as cash cows, funneling several million dollars each year from the utility funds into the general fund. I also projected that the utility rate increases approved last May would bring in somewhat more revenue than needed to cover infrastructure upgrades and operating expenses.

But it was hard to be precise about these projections, because I had only incomplete data on current revenue and expenses. For example, it appeared that additional money was being funneled into the general fund for “services” that were never itemized. I also wanted to understand a mysterious payment of $111,300 made to Pineview Water in February 2012. Most importantly, I needed better data on the number and classification of city utility customers, and on how much water they typically use.

Over much of the last year I tried to get answers to these questions through informal channels. After repeated nagging, I did get some partial answers from Chief Administrative Office Mark Johnson, and later from Mayor Mike Caldwell. Eventually, however, both Johnson and Caldwell refused to answer any further questions. And so, reluctantly, I resorted to filing formal requests under the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA).

In December I filed a request for all records documenting or justifying the payments for “services” mentioned above. In response, the city indicated that there were no records to document how the amounts of these payments (which now total about $1.8 million per year) were determined. However, the city did provide me with five pages excerpted from a lengthy line-item budget document, showing a line for each category of such payments.

Up until then, I had naively assumed that the “budget” consists of the document that the city council approves every June, which is posted for all to see on the city’s web site. But that document doesn’t have anywhere near as much detail as the five pages that I received in December. Delighted to learn that such a detailed line-item budget document exists, I filed a formal request for the whole document in early January. And much to my surprise, even though they had already given me five pages of the document, the city refused to give me the rest of it. Apparently the complete Ogden City line-item budget is a secret.

Meanwhile, because the 2012 calendar year had just ended, I filed a separate request for utility customer and water use data (with names and addresses removed) for the year 2012. I already had similar data files for 2010 and 2011, which had been compiled and provided to the consultants during last year’s water rate study. But those files don’t have enough information about the customers to calculate revenue precisely, and of course, a third year of data would provide more accurate and up-to-date statistics.

Knowing that it would require some effort to extract the utility data from the billing database, I offered to pay up to $100 for the staff time required. After two and a half weeks, however, the city recorder told me that the estimated cost would be $700, computed as three full days spent by a programmer who earns $32/hour. When I tried to ask why the process would be so complicated, the city changed its position and denied my request outright.

According to the official denial letters, the city’s denials are based on a provision of GRAMA saying that, in response to a request, the government is not required to “create a record” or to provide it “in a particular format.” Apparently, the city interprets this provision to mean that when records can’t be provided in the same format in which they are stored (e.g., cumbersome database files that are ordinarily accessed through proprietary software), they needn’t be provided at all.

This interpretation completely ignores other provisions of GRAMA that require the government to segregate private from public records upon request, and that prohibit the government from using “the physical form, electronic or otherwise, in which a record is stored to deny, or unreasonably hinder the rights of a person to inspect and receive a copy of a record.”

Ever since the first denial, on January 9, I’ve been trying to resolve these disputes through informal channels. I’ve asked to speak to the city employees who maintain the records, and received no response. I’ve gone to the newly appointed Utah GRAMA Ombudsman, and asked her to facilitate an informal discussion. After she tried for two weeks to set up a meeting, the city refused to participate.

I’ve therefore appealed both GRAMA denials to the city’s Records Review Board, which will hold a public hearing on the matters this Tuesday, February 19, at 3:30 pm, in the City Recorder’s conference room on the second floor of the Municipal Building. I look forward to finally discussing these matters with city officials face to face, and I am optimistic for a speedy and successful resolution.

For those who are interested in all the gory details, here is the complete hearing agenda packet, including my GRAMA requests, the city's denials, and my appeals.