Now what will the district do? Hand over the information

Remember that story I wrote last week, pointing out that PSJA ISD seems to be in violation of the Texas Public Information Act by refusing to turn over requested information about how much it paid to settle the lawsuit filed by former Assistant Superintendent for Support Services Rene Campos, who sued the district for age discrimination?

Well, apparently, when The Advance filed a Public Information Request (PIR) last August with the district, and got no response other than confirmation that it had received said request, the district had, in the meantime, asked that the state Attorney General’s Open Records Division (ORD) review this newspaper’s PIR, claiming that the requested information should remain privileged, AKA, hidden from public view.

What the district failed to do, however, as spelled out in the state’s Public Information Act, is advise The Advance (the requester) that it was seeking a review by the AG’s Office. Leaving us in the dark, as it were.

The Advance only found out about this lack of following proper legal protocol last week when we received a letter from the Office of the Attorney General dated Nov. 4, 2021, which was addressed to the law firm representing the district – O’Hanlon, Demerath & Castillo. Per standard protocol, The Advance got a copy of the AG’s cover letter sent to the district.

Bottom line, what The Advance is requesting is an answer to this relatively simple question: How much district money was used to settle the Campos lawsuit, and how much did the district (PSJA ISD) pay its attorneys to fight Campos’s lawsuit? We need to add another Public Information Request: how much of this was paid for by the taxpayers versus how much, if any, was paid out by the district’s insurance carrier? There should be enough available paperwork to answer that question.

In his lawsuit, Campos, who has worked for the district for more than 26 years, claimed that he wasn’t interviewed for a key position despite his long tenure with the district, claiming age discrimination as the reason. As a result, he was seeking monetary relief: “over $200,000 but not more than $1 million.”

In the lawsuit filed by Rene Campos last year, the former assistant supe claims that despite his 26-year tenure with PSJA ISD, he was not granted an interview when he applied for the newly created position of “Chief of Operations” shortly after the arrival of the district’s new superintendent, Jorge Arredondo, in October 2019. Instead, according to Campos’s suit, the new superintendent recommended the selection of Hestroberto “Nick” Martinez for the position, who is approximately 25 years younger and less qualified than Campos, according to the lawsuit. (Martinez has since left the district.) The board approved Arredondo’s recommendation.

Nine days after he filed an in-house age-discrimination complaint against the new superintendent, Campos was demoted and saw his salary cut by $39,543.

In its original response filed with the court, the district said the demotion and salary decrease had nothing to do with age discrimination, and it would have been a done deal whether or not the discrimination complaint had been filed nine days prior.

The AG’s letter

The letter from the Attorney General’s Office dated Nov. 4, 2021 almost reads as if it couldn’t make a clear ruling on the requested information because it didn’t have all the needed paper work in hand.

For example, in the third paragraph, what does this even mean: “Initially, you (PSJA ISD) state the information you have redacted is not responsive to the instant request for information because it does not relate to the specified case. This ruling does not address the public availability of any information that is not responsive to the request and the district is not required to release such information in response to this request.”

After being in the newspaper business for 40 years (has it really been that long?), I’ve read enough legalese to understand most of it, but the previous paragraph is almost unlike any I’ve ever before read.

It almost sounds as if the district didn’t send the AG’s Office the information it really needed to make a ruling as to whether the requested information is public information.

Again, any money paid by a school district to settle a lawsuit and pay attorneys has always been deemed public information since it’s public money paying for it, whether it be a direct pay out by the district or the insurance carrier, since tax dollars pay insurance premiums.

Here comes the next paragraph from the AG’s letter: “Next, we note that you have not submitted the specified agreement. Although you state you have submitted a representative sample of the requested information (the Campos settlement), we find the submitted information is not representative of all of the types of information at issue.”

Now, pardon the cynicism, but some people might ask: was this done intentionally to stall the release of how much money the district paid to settle the Campos lawsuit? In other words, don’t sent the AG’s office the entire settlement document for review, but only a sample of it.

It might not work, though, because it doesn’t seem that the AG’s Office is swallowing what PSJA ISD is dishing out: “Please be advised, this open records letter ruling applies only to the types of information you have submitted for our review. This ruling does not authorize the district (PSJA ISD) to withhold any information that is substantially different from the types of information the district submitted to this office.”

Another quote from the AG’’s letter: “Accordingly, to the extent any such information existed on the date the district received the request (Aug. 16, 2021), we assume you have released it.”

Uh, that would be a big NO.

More from the AG: “If you have not released such information, you must do so at this time.”

The rest of the AG’s letter deals with whether or not the district has to release the amount of money it paid its attorneys. The district wants to argue that attorney/client privilege shields disclosure of that amount, but it doesn’t seem to have made the AG’s Office aware that the Campos deal is settled with prejudice (case completely closed). There is no “work product privilege” at work because the attorneys are no longer preparing for a trial.

The AG’s Office says, however, that based on what PSJA ISD submitted to it, some of the legal fees made be withheld from public disclosure, but the balance must be released to this newspaper.

Now, let’s see what PSJA ISD will do.