Pictured above: This is the invoice that the USF administration sent to The Crow’s Nest. The paper has already paid $105.76 (four hours at $26.44 per hour) for IT staff to retrieve emails that the newspaper requested. Now, the administration wants the paper to pay $982 more to cover costs of reviewing the emails and redacting material it deems to be exempt from disclosure. It says that task would take 40.43 hours at $24.55 per hour.
By Crow’s Nest Staff
On Jan. 31, USF system President Steve Currall did an about-face on plans to consolidate the system’s three campuses.
For the second time in three and a half months, he backed off a proposal that would have dramatically reduced the responsibilities of the regional chancellors in St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee and shifted most of their authority to Tampa.
In the eight days surrounding Currall’s abrupt turnabout, the university administration says, Currall, Provost Ralph Wilcox and Regional Chancellors Martin Tadlock and Karen Holbrook generated 2,426 emails.
What’s in those emails?
It’s a secret.
When The Crow’s Nest filed a public records request for the emails, the paper was charged $105.76 to have the university staff search for and retrieve them.
Now, the administration says, it will cost the small, financially strapped paper another $982 to have university staff review the emails and redact material it decides is exempt from disclosure before releasing them.
It estimates that job would take 40 hours, at $24.55 per hour.
The paper, which has an annual budget of $39,000, can’t afford that, said editor-in-chief Emily Wunderlich and adviser Rob Hooker.
“It strains belief that four administrators could generate 2,426 emails in just eight days,” Wunderlich and Hooker said. “It also makes us wonder: What is the university trying to hide?”
Nancy McCann, the reporter who requested the emails, also questioned the numbers cited by the university.
“The way the estimate is now, it means the four writers would have generated over 300 emails per day communicating with each other, or about 40 emails per hour based on an 8-hour workday – if I understand your estimate correctly,” she said in an email to university system spokesman Adam Freeman.
In an email to the paper, Freeman stressed that the 2,426 emails may include duplicates. That would mean it would take less time to review them “and you would be refunded for a portion of the $982.”
Freeman also said USF “doesn’t estimate costs for public records differently based on the size or finances of the publication making the request.
“For example, if a reporter at the New York Times made the same request, they would receive the same estimate.” Freeman said.
Under Florida’s 111-year-old Public Records law, custodians of records are allowed – but not required – to impose a “reasonable” service charge if a records request requires “extensive use of information technology resources or supervisory assistance, or both,” according to the state attorney general’s office.
But some government agencies don’t impose big charges for having taxpayer-paid employees handle public records requests.
The USF administration often touts its public records policy.
In fact, the administration’s attorneys have embraced the Public Records Law in defending the university and former system President Judy Genshaft in a lawsuit filed by Sophia Wisniewska, who was ousted as St. Petersburg regional chancellor by Genshaft in September 2017.
When Wisniewska was fired, the university quickly released documents on the matter — at no charge — to The Crow’s Nest and Tampa Bay Times.
Wisniewska contends that violated an agreement on how her departure would be handled.
The university counters that it was required to release the documents under the Public Records Law.
On other sensitive matters, however, the university has been slow to respond to public records requests — and quick to charge The Crow’s Nest.
In 2015-2016, the university took 13 months and charged the paper $298.03 to provide more than 1,600 pages of emails between Wisniewska and the campus’ top academic administrator in the two weeks before he was suddenly ousted – without public explanation – in February 2015.
The emails showed that the departure of the administrator, Han Reichgelt, followed a diversity complaint and the university had worked carefully to limit publicity. But the emails shed little light on the particulars of the case.
Seven months later, in November 2016, additional records obtained by The Crow’s Nest showed that Reichgelt was forced to resign after a university investigation upheld a female professor’s complaint that he had made sexual advances and vulgar comments to her.
In 2018, the university took 40 days – and charged The Crow’s Nest $209.23 – to supply emails, letters and text messages to and from Genshaft and her chief of staff in the weeks leading up to the stunning news that the Legislature was proposing to abolish the St. Petersburg campus’ independent accreditation.
The newspaper filed a similar public records request to the Legislature, asking for documents to and from three legislators who helped push the proposal to passage.
The Legislature charged nothing for the records.
Also in 2018, the university refused for three months to disclose how much a Boston labor law consultant was paid for work during the administration’s unsuccessful attempt to thwart a union drive by adjunct faculty.
The university and its general counsel’s office asserted that documents sought in four public records requests about Katherine Lev’s work were exempt from disclosure under the state law.
Alison Steele, a veteran media lawyer who assisted The Crow’s Nest, disputed the university’s interpretation of the law.
Finally, the university disclosed that Lev was paid $14,942.82. But it said the payment came from an Atlanta workplace law firm that is a USF contractor – not the university itself.
In 2011, The Crow’s Nest reported that its attempts to obtain records on two sensitive issues were thwarted by the price tags the university administration put on the paper’s requests.
In one case, the administration said it would cost $552 to supply public records about Residence Hall One.
The request was prompted by students’ concern about a late-night room check performed by a student assistant and resident assistant.
In the other case, the administration said it would cost the newspaper $394.52 for documents related to the purchase of the original Dali Museum building, which is now called Harbor Hall.
“Are public records really open to the public at the cost of several hundred dollars or more?” The Crow’s Nest asked in an editorial on Nov. 21, 2011.
“All citizens, regardless of income, should have fair access to public records, or else they should not be called ‘public’ records.”
Crowd Source – Bad PR for the University and good traffic for the Crows Best. I bet Alumni would pitch in.
Great article by Ms. McCann. USF continues to behave defensively, and inappropriately….another government bully trying to keep the veil down…