Highlands Today
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Request For School Employee Records Raises Concerns
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Published: November 16, 2008
SEBRING - A public records request of all 67 school districts in the state relating to school employee health insurance coverage has been upheld by the State Attorney General.
Lakeland resident Joel Chandler's request met some resistance - including in his home county of Polk - for his request, for the names, addresses, ages and telephone numbers of every person covered by school district health insurance plans.
While some districts are providing the information for free or a small fee, Chandler thinks some school districts are trying to keep him from getting the records by charging too much, the Ocala Star-Banner reported.
For Highlands County, the request covers 1,700 employees plus their dependents.
School Board of Highlands County Attorney John McClure said Friday the information is not available in an electronic format so the district asked for about $2,800 to cover the cost of gathering and processing the information.
The fee was based upon a review of how long it would take a clerical worker to do each file, which was about seven minutes, and to do all the necessary redactions (remove Social Security numbers, etc.), he said.
Most of the districts in the state have the information in an electronic format and some are self-insured so they have all the records on hand, McClure said.
The district has not received a response from Chandler, he said.
State Sen, Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, wrote of her concerns about the request in an Oct. 28 letter to State Attorney General Bill McCollum.
"While I strongly believe our comprehensive public access laws should provide citizens with the information that they need to monitor governmental agencies and their expenditure of public funds, I have also heard from many teachers in my district who are concerned that the public release of information relating to their health insurance coverage is not consistent with Florida and federal laws."
She cited the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or "HIPAA," which is designed to protect the privacy of patients and the insured.
Dockery also noted the concern of the request to release the names, date of birth, gender, address and telephone number of the minor children and dependents who are covered by the health insurance plans of the school district employees.
Assistant Attorney General Lagran Saunders' responded by letter to Dockery on Monday noting that information relating to an insurance program participant's medical condition is protected from disclosure.
"However, there is no clear statement that such protection extends to the name, address, age or other non-medical information of such participants," Saunders wrote.
When doubt exits as to whether a particular document is exempt from disclosure under Florida's Public Records law, the exemption is to be narrowly construed and any doubt resolved in favor of public access, Saunders wrote.
According to the Lakeland Ledger, Chandler filed a complaint against Hillsborough, Broward, Sarasota and Osceola counties since he made the request about three weeks ago.
Ironically, Chandler's phone number is unlisted - shown as "unpublished" in a white pages search.
The Highlands County School District has his mailing address, but no phone number.
McClure said "we are complying with the letter of the law as we see it with respect to the public records law as well as compliance with the Attorney General's opinion."
Marc Valero can be reached at 863-386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com
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