Self-policing bureaucrats undermine Wisconsin's open records laws

Ben, via a kind reader's email:

State employee tries to sic IRS on education reform group

A new controversy related to the Madison protests has emerged. This one involves the taxpayer-funded email account of American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin leader and Department of Workforce Development employee William Franks.

For reasons explained below, the Education Action Group submitted an open records request for communications from Frank's taxpayer-funded email account that contained specific, strike-related key words.

Upon receipt of the records, EAG discovered that a state attorney allowed Franks to fill the open records request himself. That means he might have been free to turn over the entries he cared to include and delete other entries. Not only that, but the state attorney told Franks that "if you have personal email that contains those specified words in the request, please send copies of those to me, so we can discuss this further." That sounds like one bureaucrat helping another skirt the law and avoid a potentially embarrassing situation.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 11, 2011 1:32 AM
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