Source: http://elighthouse.isolon.org/j-h-sniders-public-information-act-request-from-the-aacps-public-information-office-for-aacps-employee-salary-data
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 16:31:53+00:00

Document:
Summary: On August 7, 2015 J.H. Snider filed a Public Information Act request for AACPS staff compensation for FY2015 and FY2014, including paycode level data. This request was substantially filled by October 28, 2015 but with a few notable omissions. Under the Maryland Public Information Act, requests are supposed to be fulfilled within 30 days.
After a number of false starts, Snider was able to get most of the paycode level data he sought, but he was never able to get paycode level data integrated with FY level data. Snider has been trying to collect this compensation data since 2008. Despite notable omissions, this round he got more complete data than ever before.
Paycode level data includes not only a payroll total for each employee but the salary components (“paycodes”) of that total. There are some 72 such components in the AACPS payroll system. For example, base salary, coaching salary, payouts for unused sick leave, bonuses, summer school teaching, and national teacher certification are all different types of paycodes. Fiscal Year (FY) level data includes fiscal year specific information such as whether an employee worked the full year (1 Full-Time-Equivalent) or part of the year (e.g., .5 FTE for working only 1 semester).
On October 22, 2015, The Capital published salary data that 1) lacked paycode level salary data, 2) included budgeted rather than actual salary data (for the current year), 3) omitted many compensation types/paycodes (e.g., bonuses) because they could not be known until they were actually expended, and 4) omitted many relevant fields such as the fraction of the year worked (e.g, it means something different when someone earns $50,000 for working a half year vs. a full year).
It is truly beyond belief that the paycode field is still not included. The pay category codes are now explained (thank you!) but the paycodes themselves are not included for each record. It is truly the height of chutzpah to assert, in the context you did, that “The response from Anne Arundel County Public Schools actually provided you more information than you requested.” I have repeatedly requested the names of all the public fields in the payroll system, and you have repeatedly refused to provide that information. The fact that you released a field that I didn’t know about indicates the opposite of what you assert: it indicates that you have been providing me with less information than I have been requesting.
Most disturbing is the continued omission of FY level data, such as FTE data, that would make it possible to analyze the salary data in a meaningful way. At least if you’re going to omit crucial data that has been repeatedly requested, I would hope that you would acknowledge doing so and provide an explanation for its omission. Providing a “single, easy-to-understand format” is of no help if it comes at the expense of providing the requested data. In the past, you have been willing to provide the FY level data. So this time we made progress on the paycode level data but seemingly at the expense of backtracking on the FY level data.
For the record, I submitted a second Public Information Act request because you failed to provide me with the paycode level data requested in the first one. Given the weaknesses in Maryland’s Public Information Act and your long track record of pretending to comply with Public Information Act requests while actually omitting vital requested information, I made a decision that the best option available to me, consistent with your pretense of having already fulfilled my first Public Information Act request, was to submit a second one. In the end, I did substantially get the paycode level data I was seeking—but not for the news cycle in which it was most relevant, something of which I’m sure you were keenly aware. And again, by not having FY specific data, time series analysis is debilitated. But access to the paycode level data is a definite improvement. Better ten weeks late than never.
The information you have provided is helpful, just not as helpful as it should have been. I do think we can both agree on something: as currently designed, the current Public Information Act process is often highly wasteful.
This communication is in response to your correspondence of October 25, 2015, which followed my response to you of September 29, 2015, under the Public Information Act, Annotated Code of Maryland, General Provisions Article (GP) § 4-101, et seq., seeking salary, step, leave, and other information regarding Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) employees.
The response from Anne Arundel County Public Schools actually provided you more information than you requested. The Pay Category Description column on the spreadsheet attached to my response provides a greater level of detail than you had sought. Nonetheless, AACPS has now added an additional tab to the spreadsheet that provides a crosswalk for you between Pay Category (Pay Code) and Pay Category Description. The other tabs included with my original transmission to you remain on the attached spreadsheet.
With regard to your assertion that you must have separate spreadsheets provided for each of the three fiscal years in your request, the Act does not require an agency to customize a response for a requestor. As such, AACPS has provided each of the pieces of data you request in a single, easy-to-understand format. The spreadsheet is sortable, and thus you maintain the flexibility to manipulate it in any way you wish.
Even in this format, I assure you that AACPS has spent exponentially more than the two hours of free labor allotted to requestor under the Act to fulfill this request. I would also point out that this is the third successive request in which you have asked for essentially the same information. Your most recent request, to which this is the second response, rescinded the two requests made immediately prior to that. Given the above, any future requests seeking the same or similar data will require reimbursement from you for the time necessary to research and compile responsive documents.
Finally, I want to address something that may not have been clearly explained previously: Pay Codes/Pay Category Descriptions for some areas involve employee discipline actions. Therefore they are not provided at the employee level as doing so would divulge that an employee was involved with a disciplinary action case. Additionally, information involving leave pay, as was previously explained to you, is provided at the aggregate level.
Tomorrow marks the 30th day since my September 29, 2015 Public Information Act request. If you don’t plan to fully comply with it, please let me know. It occurred to me that one reason you might not have sent me the historical information regarding FTEs and other variables used to analyze historical compensation is that the AACPS payroll system doesn’t archive that type of historical information. If that is the case, please say so. In that case, you obviously wouldn’t be able to fulfill my Public Information Act request.
Thank you for sending me this information within 30 days of my September 29, 2015 Public Information Act request. Much of the data I requested is here. Thank you also for providing me with explanations for the codes used in at least some of the fields.
I requested separate files for each of the three fiscal years for a reason. By consolidating three years of data into one record, much of the information becomes meaningless. For example, what does the single FTE field signify when it presumably varies year-by-year for any given employee? Presumably, the FTE field has accurate data for FY2015, but, if so, nowhere does it say that that is the year it covers. And what then about FY2014 and FY2013? Many relevant calculations cannot be done without being able to match up the FY compensation data with the FY FTE information.
I find it amazing, given our correspondence on the question and the template that I provided you, that the Pay Type Code is still missing. The Pay Category is there, but not the Pay Type Code that is used for filtering and sorting purposes. It makes me wonder how many other public fields might also have been deleted (after all, I’ve never been allowed access to the payroll system data structure). I have provided below a list of the 72 Pay Type Codes as of FY2013.
Please fulfill my Public Information Act request with the requested data for each requested fiscal year. Please also include the Pay Type Code and any other public fields that may be missing. The 30-day mark is next Wednesday. If you want to fulfill not only the letter but the spirit of my Public Information Act request, please list and provide descriptions of all the pay codes as of FY2015.
This communication is in response to your request of September 29, 2015, under the Public Information Act, Annotated Code of Maryland, General Provisions Article (GP) § 4-101, et seq., seeking salary, step, leave, and other information regarding Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) employees.
Documents responsive to your request are attached to this email.
With regard to the spreadsheet attached, please note that it has four tabs (Pay Summary by Employee, Leave Payout, Work Cycle Codes, and Unit I Salary Scale with Degree). Additionally, you fill find attached to this email a document with explanatory information regarding leave payout and types of separation.
Data is provided for FY2013, FY2014 and FY2015. Thus, no effective date is needed.
You requested Pay Codes, but AACPS tracks Pay Categories. They are provided in the attached spreadsheet.
The following fields are also provided, as per your request: degree, grade, step, title, title code, unit, years’ experience. The most recent information for each employees is provided.
The fourth tab in the spreadsheet (Unit 1 Salary Scale with Degree) explain how the employee grade for Unit 1 (provided in the first tab) corresponds the degree and the certificate an employee holds. Salary scales can be obtained from our website here.
Under the Maryland Public Information Act, State Government Article (SG) §§ 10-611, et seq., I request 1) the FY2015 publicly disclosable compensation information for all AACPS employees in Excel, a machine-readable format, broken down by paycodes for each employee. By “publicly disclosable” I mean all information disclosable under the Public Information Act. This includes but is not limited to the following fields for each paycode record for each employee: Employee #, Last Name, First Name, MI, Title Code, Title, Unit #, Work Location, FTE, Pay Code, Amount, Work Cycle CD, Grade, Step, Degree or Credits, Hire Date, EFF Date, YRS EXP, 2) the same information for FY2014, 3) the same information for FY2013, and 4) A current definition/description of the pay codes and other codes used for AACPS data entry into these fields. As you know, Maryland law specifies that public employee payroll information is public information.
Downloading 1), 2) and 3) from AACPS’s multi-million dollar payroll software and then emailing the resulting two Excel files to me as an attachment should require only a few minutes. If you are claiming that it will take more than two hours to fulfill this Public Information Act request, please provide a separate cost estimate for each of requests 1), 2), 3) and 4) above, assuming that the requests will be fulfilled in order; that is, that you will fulfill 1) first, 2) second, 3) third, and 4) fourth.
Please charge me no more than the amount you have charged the Capital or individual AACPS Board of Education members for copying similar records.
Please send me the requested files as email attachments.
If you deny any part of this request, please cite each specific Public Information Act exemption that justifies your denial of the information.
Please note that two weeks have passed since I emailed you notice of your non-fulfillment of my August 7, 2015 Public Information Act request for employee compensation information broken down by paycode (see my September 14, 2015 email below). What you sent me was compensation information by employee, which is not useful information for my purposes. Under the present circumstances, I’ve decided it’s best to make a fresh Public Information Act request. Please note that I’ve added FY2013 to my request for employee compensation information broken down by paycode.
Your response within the 30 calendar days required by the Public Information Act would be appreciated.
Thank you for appearing to fulfill my August 16 Public Information Act request. Thank you again, too, for not instigating a harassment campaign against me.
Please note that in my request I asked for “aggregate leave totals for various groups of employees in all reports [italics added for emphasis]….” It’s hard to believe that line items costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and arguably hundreds of millions over time would be subject to such minimal financial analysis (in this case, apparently none). For example, the key number is how much leave employees with various years of creditable service cash in when they retire. That aggregate number and its financial implications is completely missing from the report you provided, so I must assume that AACPS management doesn’t collect and analyze it, even though it is a key driver of the budget. If I am wrong and management does collect and analyze at least one of the various permutations of this aggregate number, please let me know that this reasonable inference I have drawn from your response to my Public Information Act request is incorrect.
In any case, I still look forward to your fulfilling my August 7, 2015 Public Information Act request. As my September 6, 2015 email to you observed, what you provided on September 4, 2015 was not what I requested. If you don’t intend to fulfill my August 7 request or intend to make the claim that you already fulfilled it, please let me know. Since the 30 day period allowed by law has already been exceeded, I will assume that if I don’t hear back from you by the end of this coming week that you don’t intend to fulfill it.
This communication is in response to the August 16, 2015, addendum to your August 7-8 requests made under the Public Information Act, Annotated Code of Maryland, General Provisions Article (GP) § 4-101, et seq., seeking salary, step, leave, and other information regarding Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) employees.
A document responsive to the August 16, 2015, portion of your request is attached to this email.
Thank you for your partial compliance on September 4, 2015 to my August 7, 2015 Public Information Act request. Thank you, too, for not once again instigating a harassment campaign against my family and me in response to my request seeking public information about how much AACPS employees are paid. I even feel that compared to the delays school board member Kevin Jackson experienced when he asked for information about how much AACPS employees are paid (ultimately, he had to resort to the Board of Education’s attorney to get the information), I’ve been treated quite well.
What you provided me was aggregate payroll information for each employee, not the breakdown of compensation by paycode, as I’ve also requested in the past and been provided. As you must know, there is a huge difference between the two types of compensation data. With the aggregate data you’ve provided, I cannot analyze what type of pay is provided for what type of activity. It’s hardly as though we haven’t been through this before. I remember at one point it took me months to get you to provide me with the descriptions of the paycodes so that I could understand to what they referred. You even refused to send me the descriptions of the data fields used by the data entry operators because that information was owned by the payroll software provider and thus couldn’t be provided in response to a Public Information Act request.
In addition to the absence of the requested compensation data broken down by paycode, the EFF Date was missing–a field you previously agreed was public information. Whether there are other responsive fields that are missing I don’t know because, as I’ve noted above, you’ve previously insisted that the payroll field structure is proprietary information.
I infer from your description of the degree field (“Degree information for all employees is the most recent degree information on file”) that it is not necessarily the historically accurate degree field data used to calculate compensation on the step salary scale for both FY2015 and FY2014. If the historically accurate degree information is available, please provide it. If any other fields used to calculate compensation are not historically accurate, please alert me. It’s hard for me to believe that AACPS management wouldn’t be able to analyze the various material variables that have determined AACPS staff compensation in the past. Without such historically accurate information, it would be impossible to analyze the impact of future changes in AACPS compensation agreements. While it is impossible for me to believe that AACPS doesn’t have this historic information, it is possible that it is stored in a data structure outside the current payroll software.
It is unfortunate that you responded to my Public Information Act request at the last possible date (a Friday afternoon preceding a three day weekend) allowed by the Public Information Act, which specifies that responses should be within 30 days of a request. The result is consistent with a well-established pattern where it often takes me months to receive a response to the actual information I requested. To prevent this back and forth rigmarole from dragging on interminably beyond the 30 day limit specified by the Public Information Act, I often feel compelled to respond by the next business day to the material omissions in your responses.
Please note that the date on your Public Information Act response was incorrect. It was September 4, 2015, not August 15, 2015.
I look forward to receiving a separate response to my other outstanding Public Information Act request dated August 17, 2015 for purposes of the 30 day rule.
This communication is in response to your requests of August 7, 8, and 16, 2015, under the Public Information Act, Annotated Code of Maryland, General Provisions Article (GP) § 4-101, et seq., seeking salary, step, leave, and other information regarding Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) employees.
As I have previously communicated to you, specific employee leave balances are part of said employee’s personnel record and therefore not disclosable under § 4-311. As such, this portion of your request is denied. AACPS is still researching and compiling data responsive to the third portion of your request. This portion requested aggregate leave totals for AACPS employees and was received by AACPS at 1:21 a.m. on Sunday, August 16, 2015. No work could begin on it until August 17, 2015, and, thus, the 30-day period allowed under the Act to complete a request began on that date.
A document responsive to the first and second portions of your request is attached to this email.
Your request contradicted itself by asking for “…non-exempt compensation information for all AACPS employees …” since all AACPS employees are not non-exempt. Given that, AACPS has opted to, in the spirit of the Act, provide you with information regarding all employees. Further, please note that non-exempt employees are those in Units 0, 3, or 4. Employees in Units 1, 2, 5, and 6 are considered exempt.
Degree information for all employees is the most recent degree information on file.
Documents responsive to the August 16, 2015, portion of your request will be sent to you when they are available.
I believe that my August 16, 2015 Public Information Act request should be treated as separate from my August 7, 2015 request. The August 7 request sought disaggregated payroll data. You yourself replied on August 15, 2015 that it was illegal to provide me with disaggregated leave data, so you couldn’t comply with that part of my request. In response, I requested aggregated leave data in reports compiled by AACPS. Consequently, the numbers sought are very different not only in legal treatment but also in both substance and format. If you do continue to insist that the August 7 and August 16 requests are part of the same request, then I hope you will agree that the 30-day clock begins on August 7 rather than August 17.
Please send all correspondence, including any responsive documents, to the From: address on this email.
This communication is in response to your request of August 16, 2015, under the Public Information Act, Annotated Code of Maryland, General Provisions Article (GP) § 4-101, et seq., seeking information regarding leave for Anne Arundel County Public Schools employees.
As you are aware, § 4-206 (b) allows a custodian to “charge a reasonable fee for search for, preparation of, and reproduction of a public record.” Under the provisions of the Act, the first two hours of labor would be provided free of charge. You would be responsible for reimbursing Anne Arundel County Public Schools for the labor required to complete all other research and compilation of documents.
Please note that this request is a continuation and addition of your requests of August 7 and 8, 2015. Thus, any time necessary to research and compile documents related to this portion of your request will be added to time necessary for research and compilation of documents related to the first two portions. If we determine that there will be a charge to you, we will notify you before proceeding with your request.
Thank you for acknowledging my Public Information Act request and taking action to fulfill it within the 30 days. If there are going to be charges, please let me know ASAP.
Just to be certain, you appear to be saying that all forms of accumulated leave that can be converted to compensation is confidential information, including for the superintendent. That is, there are no individual level leave fields in the payroll database that can be publicly disclosed.
Does the restriction on disclosing leave field balances at the individual level also apply at the aggregate level? I don’t believe it does, so I am making a separate and additional Public Information Act request for aggregate leave totals for various groups of employees in all reports with such information that AACPS has generated for FY2014 and FY2015. If necessary, please provide me with a separate cost estimate for emailing me a copy of each responsive report. Of course, I understand that the clock on this additional and separate Public Information Act request should start on August 17, 2015.
Thank you again for clarifying what type of AACPS compensation information the public is and is not allowed to see.
This communication is in response to your requests of August 7 and 8, 2015, under the Public Information Act, Annotated Code of Maryland, General Provisions Article (GP) § 4-101, et seq., seeking information regarding compensation and benefits of Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) employees.
A specific employee’s leave balance is part of said employee’s personnel record and therefore not disclosable under § 4-311. As such, this portion of your request is denied.
Regarding the remainder of your request, as you may be aware, § 4-206 (b) allows a custodian to “charge a reasonable fee for search for, preparation of, and reproduction of a public record.” Under the provisions of the Act, the first two hours of labor would be provided free of charge. You would be responsible for reimbursing Anne Arundel County Public Schools for the labor required to complete all other research and compilation of documents.
In responding to my Public Information Act request dated August 7, 2015, please include among the disclosed payroll fields for each employee by paycode all forms of earned leave, including accumulated earned sick leave, which can be converted to cash at some future period, including at retirement. Please also include all forms of earned leave that cannot be directly converted into cash at some future period but that can be converted into another type of leave that can be so converted. It is my understanding, for example, that AACPS administrators earn forms of leave that can be converted to sick leave, which can then be converted to cash at some future date. These payroll fields cover large and thus material forms of employee compensation and so should be included in any accurate public record of employee compensation.
Under the Maryland Public Information Act, State Government Article (SG) §§ 10-611, et seq., I request 1) the FY2015 non-exempt compensation information for all AACPS employees in Excel, a machine-readable format. This includes but is not limited to the following fields for each employee broken down by paycode: #, Last Name, First Name, MI, Title Code, Title, Unit #, Work Location, FTE, Pay Code, Amount, Work Cycle CD, Grade, Step, Degree or Credits, Hire Date, EFF Date, YRS EXP, 2) the same information for FY2014, and 3) A current definition/description of the pay codes and other codes used for AACPS data entry into these fields. As you know, Maryland law specifies that public employee compensation is public information.
Downloading 1) and 2) from AACPS’s multi-million dollar payroll software and then emailing the resulting two Excel files to me as an attachment should require only a few minutes. If you are claiming that it will take more than two hours to fulfill this Public Information Act request, please provide a separate cost estimate for each of requests 1), 2), and 3) above, assuming that the requests will be fulfilled in order; that is, that you will fulfill 1) first, 2) second, and 3) third.
Please send me the requested file as an email attachment.
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