AG to school: Turn over documents
Union rep says White is stalling

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — It could be called a war over documents and a winner has been declared the local teacher's union.

Since November, officials for the McKinley Federation of Unified School Employees have been submitting Freedom of Information requests to the school district in an effort to get all kinds of documents.

Tom Payton, head of accountability for the union, said that while a few of the requests have been honored, the union received no word at all about most of the requests, even those that go back to November.

The situation seemed so hopeless, he said, that the union had no choice but send a letter to the state attorney general's office, which included a list of more than 20 items that the teacher's union had asked for and never received.

On Wednesday, County School Superintendent Karen White said she received a letter from the attorney general's office that basically said "release the documents" which she said the school is in the process of doing.

White said it's going to take some time because of the amount of documents being requested by the teacher's union.

She said she didn't want to have to put someone on overtime to go through the district files and cull out the information that the union wants but she said she realizes that the district has no choice but to comply with the requests.

So what does the union want? Apparently a little bit of everything.

The union has requested a copy of the latest audit of the district's finances.

The union, said Payton, wants to find out where the money the district is getting is being spent.

There is also a request for all of the per diem that has been paid to school board members and an accounting of all the overtime that the district has paid to people in supervisory positions on up the hierarchy.

Payton said the union also wants to know which school board members have relatives working in the school district and whether these persons were hired according to state law which requires that they be approved during a school board meeting.

Payton said he has also requested information about any retreats the school board held in October or November of last year at a time when the board was reviewing its legislative priorities.

A note on the agenda of a meeting on Dec. 3 indicated that the board had a retreat in November, but when Payton asked for details, he was told that there wasn't a retreat. There was also a discussion about the retreat in the December meeting in which board members indicated they would have to have a second one to finish up on the agenda.

"We think the board is meeting and discussing items so there won't have to be a discussion during school board meetings," Payton said.

Another reason he believes this, he said, is that too many things are on the consent agenda that should be discussed but never are. He said that when he asked that some items on the consent agenda be brought up for discussion, he was told that he had no right to do this.

He said he wrote about this to the attorney general's office which backed up the school district's statements.

"We had a lot more success in getting this type of information when Bob Gomez was county superintendent," said Payton. "Gomez complied with the law but I don't see this happening under Karen White."

In fact, said Payton, the typical response under White has been to ignore the requests, even though state law requires that the public body respond within 15 days to say if the request had been approved or denied.

White said the district complied with the law and asked for extensions because of the enormity of the requests and the time it would take to ferret out the information that was requested from the union.

But Payton thinks this is a smokescreen.

The real reason why the district stalled, he said, was to get through the recent school board elections and the extension of a contract for White.

He said he felt that the stuff that the union was going to find out about the school board members and the way the district is being run is going to embarrass school board members and White; so a decision was made to stall as long as possible.

White denied any stalling, saying that the only reason for the delay was because of all the documents that the union was requesting.

The information that the union is seeking is being prepared and should be ready for union scrutiny in the near future, she said, adding that union officials can go ahead and look over the documents for no charge.

But if the district wants a copy, the cost, she said, will be $1 per page.

Payton said the union has made a major effort in the last few months to get information that has been denied them.

"We have a right to this information," he said. "It's all public information and we need it to check to see if the school district is telling us the truth. That's what unions do we hold school officials accountable."