Nevada transparency headlines
From Sunshine Review
This article is a list of transparency related news from Nevada.
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| Report It • | The Good • | The Bad • | The Ugly | |
Eighteen months have passed since Gov. Jim Gibbons issued an executive order requiring the state’s financial information to be posted on an easily searchable website for the public.
Nevada’s transparency website has been up and accessible since January. However, the only content available so far is budget and spending information for fiscal years 2006 to 2008. It now includes the 2009-11 legislatively approved budget.
As of early November 2009, the website have a searchable database and taxpayers can delve into detail showing actual payments to vendors, State Budget Director Andrew Clinger said said. Citizens can search by vendor name or by agency.
However, financial data is still being loaded into the system for fiscal year 2009, which ended June 30, as well as for the current 2010 budget year. The site is supposed to have the current budget and spending information by the end of October. The information will supposedly be updated nightly, Clinger said. After it reaches this step in development, Clinger said Nevada’s site will be about 70 percent complete. It will be missing data on contracts between state agencies and other entities as well as details of the state payroll is also a work in progress.[1]
It seems school board advisory committees and appointees are holding closed meetings as well.
The board of trustees organized the Bond Oversight Committee (BOC) in the late 1990s. It is an independent body with the purpose of providing financial, bond and investment oversight of the district's capital improvement program. It is supposed to assure the public of district accountability.
In April, school district staff moved school architect selection process to the Purchasing Department, which decided to put the usual, favored contract firms in with the smaller firms for modernization or renovation work. The Nevada Policy Research Institute reported that together the five prototype firms have received more than $145 million from new construction jobs in the last 10 years, compared to $10 million earned by approximately 30 smaller modernization companies.
Committee members requested the new architect selection process return to the committee for discussion and new recommendations to the board of trustees.
There had been no public resolution to the conflict until August 12, 2009, when the school district called a "staff meeting" in a closed session with no public access.[1]
"A North Las Vegas City Councilman, who is the favorite to become that city's next mayor, says there is no substance to allegations that he accepted bribes from undercover FBI agents.
Councilman William Robinson says the bribery allegations were created by a crooked businessman and are being exploited by his campaign rival. And Robinson is right about one thing -- it is political."
"Sometimes you have to climb down from the pulpit and practice what you preach.
One afternoon this past week I sauntered into the Clark County Government Center in quest of some public records. Union contracts have been much in the news, what with various attempts to renegotiate pay raises, so I figured I'd ask to see some."
"In a legal decision made during Sunshine Week, which promotes open government and access to public records, the Nevada Court Supreme Court denied an “emergency motion” to delay the release of a year’s worth of e-mail records from the Clark County School Board.
Karen Gray, a Henderson resident who requested the information, will likely get it Friday because of a deadline set by District Judge Susan Johnson.
And she won’t have to pay a cent for it. For now, anyway."
"Trying to check out a contractor in Nevada can be difficult. The law prohibits the Nevada State Contractors Board from telling the public about any pending complaints against contractors.
That means if the board is investigating complaints of a contractor running a scam, it cannot tell anyone until it takes action against the contractor, no matter how much evidence it has against him. That leaves consumers vulnerable to fraud."
"District Judge Susan Johnson has ordered the Clark County School Board to turn over e-mails to a citizen watchdog who challenged its public records policy.
In an order distributed Tuesday, Judge Johnson ruled that e-mails created on public servers regarding public business fall within the state's definition of a public record. Judge Johnson ruled the burden was on the school district to prove that individual e-mails are not public records before denying them to activist Karen Gray.
Ms. Gray filed her lawsuit in June 2007, seeking copies of board members' e-mails from November 2005 to November 2006. Ms. Gray expressed concern that members might be violating the state's open meeting law by discussing School Board business in private, said Lee Rowland, an attorney with the ACLU of Nevada, which represented Ms. Gray.
Ms. Rowland praised the order Wednesday, saying the judge ruled "broadly in favor of public disclosure.""
"A judge has ordered the Clark County school board to turn over e-mails to a citizen watchdog who challenged its public records policy in court.
In an order distributed Tuesday, District Court Judge Susan Johnson ruled that e-mails created on public servers regarding public business fall within the state's definition of a public record. Johnson ruled the burden was on the school district to prove that individual e-mails are not public records before denying them to activist Karen Gray." Read the full article here.
"Former Henderson Police Chief Richard Perkins was on the city payroll two months this fiscal year, but he stands to pull down nearly $450,000 from City Hall at a time when politicians must slash services or raise taxes as government revenue plummets with the state economy.
Perkins, 47, stepped down this past summer with the minimum 25 years of service credit on the police force, necessary to qualify for a full pension.
His years, combined with the $168,478 salary he received when he departed, gave him a pension worth an estimated $99,400 a year."
"A judge on Wednesday denied the bulk of a Reno Gazette-Journal lawsuit seeking access to Gov. Jim Gibbons' e-mail records, holding that most of the correspondence is confidential under Nevada law.
Carson City District Judge Todd Russell also denied the newspaper's request for an itemized list of the e-mail records so it could independently assess whether the correspondence fell under the state's public records law.
Russell told Gibbons to release six of 104 emails that were reviewed in private by a court master to determine whether they were public. The court master, Dave Nielsen said the rest were personal, of a non-public "transitory nature" or privileged."
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