Bogus invoice by K-M doesn’t stop DCI from finding the truth

About a month ago, this newspaper began investigating the abrupt resignation of Kasson-Mantorville School Board member Amy Olson.
Olson in her resignation letter cited a family crisis that had caused her to be distracted from the work. Right away, we knew there was more to the story.
We were stonewalled by the superintendent, board chair, and even Olson herself. No one wanted to answer our questions on the record.
So, like any newsroom would, we became suspicious, and our suspicions led this newspaper to make a data request for about 50 days’ worth of emails leading up to Olson’s resignation. The request was for any emails between board members and correspondence between board members and superintendent Ted Ihns.
It is not uncommon for members of the community or particularly the press to make data requests for emails. It’s a right the public has, and it’s a way to hold elected officials accountable.
Earlier this year, the Dodge County Independent made a data request for emails between City Administrator Tim Ibisch and members of the City Council.
That request was fulfilled within a few hours, and the newspaper was charged zero dollars for it. We applaud Ibisch and his staff at City Hall for recognizing the importance of transparency.
We unfortunately can’t say the same for the school district.
This past Friday, we finally received an update for our data request, which came with an invoice for over $180.
As a small newspaper in a challenging time, you can imagine it’s hard to come up with $18, never mind $180, to pay for an added expense.
The charge for the data, which the district says paid for the time to gather it, came as a shock to this newsroom, which has a combined 100 years of experience with gathering news. Government entities generally do not charge the press for data unless it’s to make physical copies, which we weren’t requesting. Consider that in neighboring Steele County, Owatonna Public Schools has absorbed more than $300,000 in staff time fulfilling an extensive data request, rather than charging residents who asked for it.
While we can’t speak to the school district’s motives for the charges, it certainly could have stopped the newspaper from digging any further for the truth.
But if the goal of the district was to intimidate the press, it didn’t work. The right to publicly accessible data was not going to be stopped by a $180 invoice.
Quickly one of our reporters, who grew up 1,400 miles away in Rhode Island, got on the phone and asked his friends back home who support government transparency for a few bucks to help cover the cost of the data request.
Those folks in Rhode Island believe in the importance of transparency and a press free of government interference, it’s something we wish we could say was the case for the K-M school district.
On Monday, after consulting with the Minnesota Newspaper Association attorney, it turns out, we shouldn’t have been charged at all, in order to “inspect the data.”
Inspecting data essentially means being able to review the data, in person, while also being permitted to take photos of said documents, which we did on Tuesday.
The attorney, who is an expert in this area said, “when you request to inspect public data --rather than asking for copies--the govt. agency may not assess ANY fee, of any kind.”
One would have to wonder why the school district didn’t bother to mention to us that if we wanted to inspect the data, we wouldn’t have to pay.
When we confronted the school district on Monday, about what we were actually being charged for, we weren’t given an answer.
We hope this is a lesson to the Kasson-Mantorville school district, and any other government entity out there: There is only so long anyone can avoid numerous calls and emails by reporters, and there are only so many scare tactics the government can employ to try to stop a story.
This newspaper also finds it extremely disturbing that at least one person involved with the situation went as low as to tell us that it would be “highly unethical” for a school board member to pay for our data request.
Let us be perfectly clear about what happened; when we first made the data request, a school board member told district leadership they would pay for the request. We did not ask them to pay. We did not say we would accept it.
While we don’t have a position on the ethics of an elected official paying for any data request, let us be clear: No elected official in Dodge County was going to pay for or contribute towards the data request.
In fact, we respectfully told the individual who offered to pay that there are plenty of people out there who are willing to support a free press.
But the question is, why would an individual even make this comment? One would think anything said in an email between two elected officials would be appropriate for the front page of the paper.
Or maybe that’s the point.
Thank you to those who stand up for a free press!