Wednesday, July 28, 2010
 
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Public worker info veto draws praise, ire

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[July 28, 2010]  SPRINGFIELD -- When Illinois lawmakers come back to the Capitol after the November election, they will once again have to decide if the public should be able to see work records of public employees.

Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday used an amendatory veto on a piece of legislation that would have kept all but the most basic of information in locked files. House Bill 5154 aimed to exempt employee evaluations and other information in a public worker's file from freedom of information requests.

Quinn said only police officers should get the new exemption. Public school teachers, principals and school superintendents received a similar exemption in different legislation earlier this year.

The governor said there is a public safety need to keep some private information about cops private.

"These evaluations could be used by criminal suspects or defendants to undermine a police investigation or attack the credibility and integrity of a police officer," Quinn wrote in his veto message to lawmakers.

Exterminator

Reaction to that decision was strong, but mixed.

Melissa Hahn, president of the Illinois News Broadcasters Association, praised Quinn for protecting Illinois' newly expanded Freedom of Information Act.

Hahn said that with one governor in jail and another facing possible jail time, Illinois needs another set of eyes on government at all levels.

"These folks are being paid by taxpayer dollars to function for the good of the public. And the public should really know if that's happening," she said.

Don Craven, with the Illinois Press Association, agreed that some information is better than nothing. But he adds that without full records on all public workers, the new law is "half a loaf."

"There are still a significant number of public employees whose evaluations are prohibited from disclosure -- school superintendents, police officers, teachers, principals," he said.

The move to place information about teachers, principals and school superintendents off-limits came as part of a compromise in Illinois' hunt for Race to the Top federal education grant dollars. The state got a provision to tie teacher pay to performance. Teachers got an exemption to keep proof of that performance out of the public eye.

Unions for thousands of other state and local government workers now want the same. AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall said there is too much that could be lost or misused if workers are not protected.

"It's common-sense legislation the preserves the personal privacy of public service workers and the confidentiality of their personnel files," he said.

But the information in those personnel files has been public since the first of the year, and both Hahn and Craven point out that not many people have asked to see them.

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"We're not trying to snoop into anybody's private grocery lists. We're trying to make sure that the people who are being paid to do public service are indeed doing public service," Craven said.

Hahn added that most of the requests to the Illinois attorney general's office under the new freedom of information law have been related to specific issues.

"Requests for personnel evaluations rarely happen. And it happens for a reason -- usually tied to corruption and allegations of mistreatment of employees. And that's what we've found in Illinois," the Illinois News Broadcasters Association president said.

AFSCME's Lindall said his union supports whistle-blowers and is always trying to protect workers from inner-office mistreatment. But he said his fear is the same as Quinn's: how that information would be used outside of a government office.

"(Quinn's veto message) says nothing about prison workers who have, frankly, more contact with dangerous criminals than police officers do. He said nothing about child protective workers who go into very dangerous situations and do very sensitive work about protecting kids from abuse and neglect," Lindall said.

He said AFSCME will push for lawmakers to override the governor's veto during this fall's legislative session. The proposed law fell one vote short of the three-fifths majority needed to carry that override in the Illinois House.

Hahn and Craven hope lawmakers listen to Quinn's message and don't continue to nibble away at the state's new freedom of information law.

[Illinois Statehouse News; By BENJAMIN YOUNT]

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