CASH BOMB NEEDED TODAY
Blogger Kevin Ohlandt of Exceptional Delaware posted a GoFundMe campaign for $1875 to cover the Delaware Department of Education’s demand for fulfilling Kevin’s FOIA request. The request is for contracts and emails related to Delaware’s relationship with AIR and DRC, who are respectively the testing and scoring vendor for Delaware’e Smarter Balanced Assessment test.
Kevin has asked repeatedly for this information, and has followed up with DOJ do reduce DOE’s demands from an even more ridicuous $8000-something. Kevin is blessed with the time, the energy, and the integrity go make the most of the information.
We need to fill the GoFundMe campaign TODAY to send DOE and the Senate a message, on this day when HB 50 (Opt Out) is on the Senate agenda, and Governor Markell has his veto pen ready. So put in a few bucks, or even a few hundred to make the message loud and clear today.
Please try and kick in a few bucks. Using ridiculous FOIA fees to maintain secrecy simply ain’t right.
So tired of this shit. Thanks for sharing, Jason.
Under state law, the first 20 pages are free, and each additional 8.5X11 piece of paper costs 10 cents. I’m no math major, but that equals 18,750 pages. There are provisions, of course, for “administrative fees.” I would like to see the itemized costs provided by the state — also required by law — to see how much of this $1875 is for administrative work.
Whatever the story behind it, this is an important cause. I made my donation already. What’s stopping everybody else?
Whats stopping everyone else? You’re dealing with liberals. They don’t spend their own money. They think government and “other people” should do that.
Exactly. He’s ONE PERSON. Those fees are there for a reason. The Department can avail ACCESS to the record for reading by anyone, as prescribed by law. But the knife cuts both ways when every gadfly, disgruntled parent, agency , blogger etc.., expects fees to be waived for a PERSONAL copy of the material. What do you think the poor person “assigned” to this request should do? Forgo being paid to honor a FOIA for a private citizen—as they are taken off their regular desk assignment? THINK ABOUT THIS rabbit hole you are funding for what? FOIA fine. But’s it’s for access to public information—not your own private edition. This is the kind of crap that creates resentment, and obfuscates the REAL MISSION here. You want to help, and think he should have his personal copy? Fine, otherwise…..a tank of gas is cheaper and he can read all he wants and take photos with his phone.
It’s no different than getting copies of court documents etc…
But’s it’s for access to public information—not your own private edition
We are funding this because we trust Kevin to analyze and digest the information and to publish it in an accessible way (i.e, on his blog).
This is the kind of crap that creates resentment
Apparently it does.
I’m in and thanks to Kevin for doing this work.
What do you think the poor person “assigned” to this request should do?
It is this person’s management that is the problem here. There is something obscene about asking a taxpayer to pay for information that they already pay for. Providing reasonable information to a taxpayer should be a part of the job and built in — not an extra burden. Still — I get that there are costs for vetting emails and making copies. Some of this ought to be digital — contracts are going to be sent through the same copier to produce a pdf. Why not offer to give him digital copies? The state is not paying for either impressions, toner or paper for those. The FOIA cost is all too often meant to scare off a requester, not to produce any compliance.