Above the law

Apart from being thanked for my patience time and again, CIty Hall was unable to produce that. Unable to account for overtime expenditures in a meaningful way. The City Attorney's office invented excuses about not being able to provide electronic records, despite clear legal indicators, and the fact they'd sent me a spreadsheet the week prior. They said I might "change" the contents, which ranks among the most asinine excuses.

I was told the city would the city would have to hire computer programmers at my expense to "reconfigure its computer system" for more information.

Finance Director Steve Stark and Assistant City Attorney Ann Rider told me they were not sure what I meant by "base salary." In writing, Rider said "the City is still attempting to compile the 'base' salary information requested."

They stalled for more than two months before referring me to posted job rates. Under state law, my request is still unfulfilled.

Thank you for your patience regarding the City's response to your December 5, 2007 Public Records Act request. After spending over 30 hours of staff time in coordinating the information needed from payroll, general accounting and the Police and Fire Departments in an attempt to respond to your request, the attached spreadsheet has been created. It is my understanding that, in general, the Police Department is reimbursed for the categories of Outside Jobs, Movie Detail and Special Assignments. We had not heard back from the Fire Department as of the time of this response.

In order to provide a more detailed response, the City would have to reconfigure its computer system. The cost for said computer programming is reimbursable to the City by the requester under Government Code Section 6253.9(2)(b). Should you wish the City to perform further research to provide a more detailed response to your request, please let me know and I will get the cost for the programming needed to provide this information to you. Prepayment for the cost of this additional research will be required.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you wish to pay to have additional computer programming done or if you have questions on this response. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Very truly yours,
Ann Sherwood Rider
Assistant city Attorney
City of Pasadena

More painful e-mail exchanged inside!

From: Todd Ruiz
To: Ann Rider
Date: 12/12/07

Ann --

Thanks so much. I had discussed a mix of data points I'd hoped to glean from the Finance Dept. and after reviewing the spreadsheet, will contact Ann Erdman if I think there is further information that could be considered responsive to my initial request and subsequent.
Any time a request appears to be burdensome, I am always available to discuss means of refining it to be practical.

Best regards,

Todd

From: Todd Ruiz
To: Ann Rider, Ann Erdman
Date: 12/12/07

Ann(s) ~

Hope all is well.

Had a few follow-up questions:

1) Could you let me know what portion of my request specifically could
not be satisfied without having to "reconfigure" the city's computer
system? What information would that be necessary to collect?

2) Does the city not periodically create any type of record that would
generally be considered an overtime report?

3) I have a 49-page printout of the city's 2006 gross payroll data
listed by "Assignment Title," "Department Code," and "2006 Gross."
This appears to have been printed from a spreadsheet file. To avoid
the introduction of error while re-entering this data, I wanted to ask
for the data file / spreadsheet form. On Dec. 6 I clarified my
original request with Mr. Stark, asking if this same payroll data
could be made available with a fourth column of information which
would itemize "Base Salary" for the city employees.

Thank your for your help with this matter, please do not hesitate to
call me for further clarification or to discuss my request further.

Best,

Kenneth Todd Ruiz
(626) 578-6300, Ext. 4444
Pasadena Star-News</blockquote>

Excerpts from Ann Rider's Dec. 17 response, emphasis mine:

In response to question 1, and in furtherance of your discussion with City Finance Director Steve Stark, although the request would seem simple, in fact it is quite complicated on an internal level because the records are not maintained by the Department of Finance in a format where the information can be easily retrieved.  After further review, it appears that the requested information may not be able to be retrieved electronically.  ... All this information is maintained by different employees within the City of Pasadena and unfortunately cannot be easily accessed by the stroke of a computer keyboard.  It would require substantial effort and would result in the City creating a document that does not currently exist.  The Public Records Act does not require the City to create documents, only to provide documents that currently exist.  

 
In addition, to provide all the supplemental information to allow you to determine the information, if it even existed, would require production of numerous documents and is a burdensome request to the City.   In the case of ACLU v. Deukmejian (1982) 32 Cal.3d 440, the California Supreme Court upheld the refusal to produce records where the result would be unduly burdensome under Government Code Section 6255.  Here, the total amount of overtime paid annually by the City has been provided.  Since this further response would require the City to produce information with little relevance to the requested information (i.e. the agreement between the City and the Tournament of Roses, salary schedules, etc.) for you to glean the needed information, and the time to compile this information is substantial, there is not sufficient public interest in providing this information to justify the burden to the City to compile it.  In addition, there is no guaranty of the accuracy of the final calculation since some overtime may not be reflected. 

 
As to question #2, the overtime report maintained by the Finance Department has been provided to you. This is a 26 pay period summation of the amount of overtime paid by the City on a fiscal year basis.  Please note that the information as to City employees' gross salaries is on an annual basis.  The Finance Department does not have a further breakdown report of the overtime paid.  This information is provided to the analysts from each department to use to determine if it is reasonable within their department's budget parameters.  In addition, the determination of the overtime paid per employee based on their "base" salary is extremely difficult to determine because the salary listed in the City's salary resolution may be augmented by such things as bilingual pay, vacation cash outs (for instance, in 2006 City employees were required to cash out their excess vacation time that they used to be able to carry over indefinitely which resulted in inflated gross salaries for 2006), incentive pay and other additions to their salary beyond the base salary but which would not be classified as overtime pay.  Certain salary information can be gleaned from the City's web site which has the Salary Resolutions and Memoranda of Understanding with the various unions. However, I am attempting to check at the department level for the requested information and will forward any information I receive that is responsive to your request.

 
To respond to question #3, it is my understanding that you have the previously produced gross salary information in PDF format.  The City can provide the document to you electronically if you do not have it but the City cannot provide an open spread sheet since this would be a draft document.  Draft documents are not public records under Government Code Section 6254(a) since information can be added and changed and the integrity of the public record cannot be maintained.  In addition, under the balancing test of Government Code Section 6255, the public interest in maintaining the integrity of the document outweighs the public interest in release of a document that purports to be a City document but which could be manipulated to contain information different from that which exists in the official City document.

 

            As I am continuing to search for additional documents that may respond to your request, and since we are treating your clarification as a new request, we will respond as soon as we have located any additional documents. 

 

Please know that I, on behalf of the City, am personally committed to both the spirit and letter of the California Public Records Act and that I am doing my best to make sure that all available information is provided to you as expeditiously as possible.  Please accept my apologies for any delays but know that we have been putting in substantial time and effort in trying to locate the requested information and to respond as quickly as possible.