Technology and the OK Supreme Court
A recent ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court illustrates a common complaint of government agencies and bureaucracies, namely that they haven’t kept up with the expansion of technology.
The court ruled earlier this month that any requests for bulk electronic court case data–basically large downloads or exports of court record information–was now off limits. (Read my story here; the Tulsa World’s story is here. For more on the idea of bulk data downloads from government, check out Web guru Tim O’Reilly’s blog.)
Over the last few decades, Oklahoma county district court clerks have moved their case management systems from paper files to electronic formats. But there are two separate systems, the state-run Oklahoma State Courts Network and the privately run On Demand Court Records. They’ve each evolved over time in response to the needs of district court clerks across the state. There are 13 district courts–including the state’s two largest counties–covered by OSCN; 64 district courts have signed up with ODCR, which is operated by KellPro Inc. of Duncan.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling followed an open records request earlier this year by an Edmond-based firm, INAD Data Services LLC. The company requested electronic copies of all court case information for state district courts and the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Court.
The request appeared to have caught Supreme Court administrators off guard. They responded to INAD’s attorney with a letter in late July. The letter said some court information was confidential under state and federal law. It also said the Supreme Court would be asking the Attorney General’s office for advice. The Supreme Court Administrative Office’s general counsel, Debra Charles, said:
If I am satisfied that all or a portion of the records on OSCN.net can be released in bulk, you should anticipate paying a reasonable fee to search and reproduce all of the public records that can be appropriately segregated for public view. Please understand that, if the electronic records can be reasonably segregated, the cost of a system-wide search of this nature will likely be significant.
We’re still trying to figure out what happened in between that letter and the Supreme Court’s ruling Oct. 8 to forbid release of bulk records. But Oklahoma Chief Justice James Edmondson (the brother of Attorney General Drew Edmondson), sent a letter to INAD’s attorney and state Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, dated Oct. 5. The letter, which was effectively a denial of the open records request, stated:
… Copies of all information, documents and electronic court records would encompass cases dating back to 1984 in Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. During the intervening 25 years, the other 75 counties have moved to digital record keeping. This literally amounts to millions of pages.
In summary, everything you have requested can be readily accessed through oscn.net or is available on a case-by-case basis at any court clerk’s office in each of the courthouses in Oklahoma. We direct you to oscn.net for full and complete open access to court information.
Later that week, justices issued their ruling.
Justice Edmondson said Tuesday that the ruling was intended to cover only commercial requesters of bulk court data. Other requests, such as those made by noncommercial entities or the media, would be decided on a case-by-case basis, he said. But that’s not explicitly stated in the ruling.
Furthermore, Edmondson said the court signed a contract with KellPro to convert ODCR court case data in preparation for a single, unified Web site of district court information. The contract authorizes the court to spend up to $1.15 million this fiscal year for the data conversion.
Tim Keller, the founder of KellPro, said the contract covers only the data conversion. He expects the Supreme Court will put the work of the unified system out to a competitive bid once the data conversion is finished. In the meantime, KellPro is selling expanded access to court information to members of the Oklahoma Bar Association.
Since hearing about the Supreme Court’s ruling late Monday, I’ve had several conversations with attorney Doug Wilson of Stillwater, who specializes in electronic government information and data. Wilson said the ruling could raise constitutional issues, including one that forbids the state from granting a preference to one company over another.
To play devil’s advocate, I can see why KellPro would like to protect its system of court information. After all, the company’s employees spent time, energy and money pursuing case management system contracts with district court clerks across the state. For a company to come after the fact and request bulk information from their systems doesn’t seem fair.
However, the information isn’t KellPro’s in the first place. They developed the system and software, but the “ownership” stake of the records themselves lies with the people of Oklahoma, whose tax dollars fund the state’s legal system.
It’s interesting to note that this isn’t the first time the Supreme Court has gotten involved in Web access to court documents. In response to privacy concerns, the court issued a ruling last year that would have stopped online access to court filings across the state. They rescinded that ruling after complaints from the public, the media and open-records advocates.
–Paul
About those stimulus job numbers so far
New figures were released this morning on Recovery.org about the estimated jobs saved and/or created from stimulus spending so far. The numbers are coming from the first-round of information reported by contractors earlier this month.
In Oklahoma, the results are underwhelming to say the least. According to the site, Oklahoma companies have signed 120 stimulus-related contracts so far for $92.3 million. And the jobs created or saved? Just 202.
Nationwide, about 30,300 jobs have been created or saved so far, according to data collected so far. That’s not much considering the economy needs to be creating about 100,000 jobs each month just to keep up with population growth.
One White House economist, Jared Bernstein, said it’s still too early to say whether the stimulus is working as intended. But he pointed to “private estimates” as proof that many more jobs are being created.
“It is too soon to draw any global conclusions from this partial and preliminary data, as it reports on just $16 billion of the $339 billion in Recovery Act efforts before September 30th, but the early indications are quite positive. The direct count by Recovery Act recipients of jobs created or saved from this small percentage of the Recovery Act exceeds our projections. All signs — from private estimates to this fragmentary data — point to the conclusion that the Recovery Act did indeed create or save about 1 million jobs in its first seven months, a much needed lift in a very difficult period for our economy. We look forward to the much larger, comprehensive report due on October 30th.”
Just last month, the president’s Council of Economic Advisers put out its estimates of stimulus-related job creation in the first-quarter. Here’s the relevant table:
Source: The White House
Buried deep in the report, the council says it used three methodologies to estimate job impacts by state.
None of these three approaches does a perfect job of measuring the geographic distribution of employment effects, and each has advantages and disadvantages relative to the others. Thus, to obtain a reasonable estimate of state-level job impacts, we use a simple average of the three approaches.
Of course, simply because their populations are larger, we estimate that larger states have seen larger jobs impacts. Similarly, because their employment is more cyclically sensitive, industrial states are estimated to have had larger employment effects relative to their populations. Finally, both because of their industrial composition and because state fiscal relief and aid to those directly impacted have been larger in states hit harder by the recession, we estimate that states with higher unemployment rates at the time of passage have seen larger employment effects of the ARRA relative to their populations.
The Washington Post has a good wrap-up of the expectations created, and the reality of reporting job figures, here:
… Others say the reports being released this month will underscore the challenge of trying to quantify the jobs being created. Initial recipients of the stimulus money, and any government or company that they pass it on to, must report how they use the funds and how many jobs they create. But the reporting requirements do not apply to additional levels of contractors who receive the money.
My advice is to treat those early job numbers as estimates and best-guesses, at least until we get more information later this month and in the months to come.
To find out who’s getting stimulus contracts so far, just check out Recovery.gov. Here’s a list of the Oklahoma contracts signed as of earlier this month, either by Oklahoma companies or for work to be done in Oklahoma. (We also have a link to the state government’s stimulus site on our Right to Know page, which includes other databases of local interest.)
–Paul
Finding state and local budget details
The recession and lower tax revenues are crimping state and local budgets, so it’s good to see several policy groups are making it easier for Oklahomans to find information about their government spending and taxation.
The Oklahoma Policy Institute has just released its Online Budget Guide, a detailed look at state and local budgets in Oklahoma.
I’ve spent a little time checking out the site, and it’s certainly comprehensive. There’s a wealth of information, and the Oklahoma Policy Institute folks say they are committed to keeping the facts and figures timely and relevant. They plan to later add information about federal stimulus spending in Oklahoma and possibly details of state and local bond debt.
As Matt Guillory, executive director of the institute, puts it:
“We’ve designed the Guide to be a resource for anyone interested or affected by government finance in Oklahoma. Those just getting interested will find it to be a clear and simple overview, but it will also serve as a great reference tool for legislators, advocates, members of the media, teachers and others with greater experience in budget issues.”
The nice thing about the guide is that it also includes information on all types of money flowing into state and local coffers, not just sales, income or property taxes. For example, it has information on federal pass-through money, user charges, utilities and trust revenues.
On the expenditure side, the guide has a look at where the money goes and how effective that spending is.
“This is a look at not only what we’re spending, but what we’re getting in return,” said Paul Shinn, the institute’s consultant and the primary author of the guide.
The Policy Challenges section gets into the institute’s bread-and-butter advocacy for tax fairness in Oklahoma, as well as some long-term fiscal challenges that lawmakers will have to deal with in the future.
“We don’t pretend to have solutions, but we offer options,” Shinn said.
If you want the Cliff’s Notes version of the budget guide, you can download the highlights here.
For more on state spending, check out the state’s Open Books site. The link is also on our Right to Know page.
–Paul
Oklahoma stimulus funding update
The latest stimulus figures were released this morning by the state. Here’s a quick glance at which agency has gotten funding through Aug. 31.
Source: Oklahoma Office of State Finance
–Paul
Should OKC withhold name of disciplined employee?
My colleague Bryan Dean has been following the fallout of a reorganization of Oklahoma City departments, which has apparently unearthed some questions about a federal grant program.
The city recently moved its Weed and Seed Program, a federally funded urban crime and quality of life initiative, from the now defunct neighborhood services department to the police department. (Read Bryan’s stories here and here.)
The City of Oklahoma City has put two employees on leave after an investigation into Weed and Seed grant funds. Officials claim they accidentally gave the newspaper the name of the first employee, and they’re refusing to give the name of the second employee disciplined.
Meantime, the city also refused to release the date of birth of the first employee, Ed Martin. The newspaper is seeking his date of birth so it can find out more about Martin’s background. But with nothing more than a name, verifying public records we already have makes it virtually impossible to find out which of the seven Ed Martins in Oklahoma City is a city employee.
In a rather bizarre twist of logic, the city attorney said releasing Martin’s date of birth would be an invasion of privacy because it’s listed on his drivers’ license.
Before we go any further, let me ask you the last time you were asked to show your drivers license to a stranger? I do it an average of 3 or 4 times a week at a variety of retail establishments. I hardly consider my date of birth to be super-secret, private information.
Legally, city attorneys do have a point with certain drivers license information being closed to the public. But as Oklahoma State University journalism associate professor Joey Senat points out, that federal law governs the state Department of Public Safety, which issues drivers licenses. It does not govern the disclosure of city personnel actions:
The federal statute doesn’t explicitly list date of birth among the personal information on a driver’s license that should not be disclosed.
‘Personal information’ means information that identifies an individual, including an individual’s photograph, social security number, driver identification number, name, address (but not the 5-digit zip code), telephone number, and medical or disability information.
The fight over public employee records and dates of birth also has been brewing in Texas, where the Legislature has been trying to close access. My friend and former coworker, Ryan McNeill, has more at the Dallas Morning News Investigates blog.
Further afield in Washington state, former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels asked that state’s attorney general to make a ruling on closing access to city employee records and dates of birth. After researching the issue, Attorney General Rob McKenna said there was no basis for such a decision:
I have looked carefully into this matter and have concluded that public employees’ dates of birth should not be statutorily or categorically exempt from disclosure, for three main reasons. First, dates of birth are already widely available on the Internet and elsewhere, including state voter registration records that are publicly available. Thus, for practical purposes, there is simply no privacy interest left to protect. Second, dates of birth are an important tool to help keep government accountable. Finally, a more targeted and effective way to fight identity theft would be to allow consumers to freeze access to their credit histories to prevent identity thieves from opening credit accounts in their names.
One of the most cited reason for closing public records, identity theft, is largely a red herring. When asked, our local police couldn’t name an instance of identity theft from public records. Most identity theft comes from old-fashioned thefts, lost wallets or a wayward relative with easy access to credit cards or mail, according to the latest research report by Javelin:
Despite the hefty blame – largely perpetuated by the media – placed on the Internet and cyber-crime, online identity theft methods (phishing, hacking and malware) only accounted for 11% of fraud cases in 2008. The truth is, most known cases of fraud occur through traditional methods, when a criminal has direct, physical access to the victim’s information. These instances include stolen and lost wallets, checkbooks, or credit cards, or even through the simple act of a criminal surreptitiously eavesdropping into your conversation as you make a purchase.
For more on the issue of public records, privacy and ID theft, check out my previous blog posts here and here.
–Paul
Auditing school district transparency
If you’re interested in how much information is out there online about your local school district, take a look at this report released today by Oklahomans For Responsible Government. Overall, it’s not a flattering portrait of online transparency among the state’s school districts. From the report:
There are districts that have good websites, but lack information
taxpayers need. If the football schedule can be posted, surely the
board meeting schedule can, too. We found districts that have
Twitter accounts, but nothing about a budget or how to contact
board members.
OFRG earlier took a look at county Web sites, an area that also was part of the state and local government focus of this year’s Sunshine Week in Oklahoma. (Read the national report here; Check out the Oklahoma survey data here.)
Here’s what Oklahoma State University journalism professor Joey Senat said back in March on local transparency and technology:
“I don’t know of anyone still using a typewriter,” said Senat, who organized the Oklahoma Sunshine Week surveys. “All of this information is being created electronically, which is the first big step to getting it online.
“We need to expect our public officials to learn how to provide us access online. Taxpayers already pay for the records; putting it online certainly seems to be a minimal cost. There are enough counties and cities and school districts who are already doing it to show that it is doable.”
Of course, sunshine and open records are year-round issues, so it’s nice to see groups like OFRG taking a look at online transparency.
–Paul
The best-paid state employees
In case you missed it, I had a story on Saturday about the $433,000 payout to the former dean of the Oklahoma State University medical school. The university paid Dr. John J. Fernandes the payout in June for the final two years of his employment agreement, which came to more than $400,000, and his regular monthly salary of more than $32,000.
That June payout made Dr. Fernandes the state’s highest-paid employee in June. Here’s the list of the Top 100 for June:
Normally, when I download the state’s monthly payroll, it’s coaches like Bob Stoops and Mike Gundy who are at the top. But because of his payout, Fernandes took the top spot in June. Looking at the Top 100, it’s also interesting to note that all but one of the state employees is from Higher Ed. The list is dominated by doctors on the professional plan at OU’s hospital.
To check out more state payroll information, you can go to the state’s Open Books site. There’s a link from our Right to Know page under the “Data” column.
–Paul
OK ranks low in stimulus Web site survey
I’ve already pointed out a few issues with the federal recovery.gov site and our state’s stimulus tracking site in an earlier post, but now a national group has come out with a report ranking every state’s stimulus Web site.
The results are not encouraging. Oklahoma’s main stimulus site manages a score of just 20 out of 100 possible points, according to the rankings by Good Jobs First. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s stimulus site fares a little better, at 33 out of 100.
“Given the Recovery Act’s high profile, we expected better results, but most state ARRA [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] sites simply do not measure up,” said Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First and principal author of the report. “The challenge is not insurmountable. States such as Maryland, Colorado and Washington are doing a very good job in conveying vital information about stimulus spending and are leading the way in establishing best practices for state ARRA disclosure.”
Good Jobs First does say Oklahoma’s site includes good information on the broad allocation of stimulus funds. But it faulted Oklahoma for not including information about jobs saved and/or created and for failing to provide stimulus funds by geography.
If there is a silver lining in the report, it’s that most other states scored close to Oklahoma. The average score in the Good Jobs First report was 28. Just six states scored 50 or better for their main stimulus site: Maryland, Colorado, Washington, West Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania.
Good Jobs First had several recommendations for state stimulus Web sites:
1. Put a summary of key information about ARRA spending at the top of the home page of the site. A clear bar graph, pie chart or table showing the main spending flows goes a long way in helping the user begin to see what the Recovery Act is all about. There should be clear links to pages with more details about the various programs.
2. Provide a map or a table showing how overall ARRA spending and the amounts in key categories are being distributed geographically around the state.
3. Along with information on spending streams, report on individual projects being funded by those programs. Where possible, display the location of the projects on maps. Interactive displays that allow one to drill down for more details are better than static PDF maps. [emphasis mine]
4. For projects carried out by private contractors, be open about the contract award process and the identity of the companies that win bidding competitions. Post the bids and the details, including the full text of the contract awarded to the winner.
5. While the federal government’s Council of Economic Advisers is responsible for estimating the overall employment impacts of ARRA and the Recovery.gov website will report jobs data on some (but not all) individual projects, state ARRA sites should also make an effort to include employment data in their project reporting.
6. ARRA sites should provide readily accessible information about the ways that individuals, organizations and businesses can apply for stimulus grants and contracts.
I’m sympathetic to a point about some of the Oklahoma Web site’s shortcomings. After all, the stimulus money continues to trickle out of Washington to the states. And we’re all new at finding the quickest and most effective ways of keeping track of it.
The folks at OK.gov, who administer the state’s stimulus site on behalf of the ARRA Coordinating Council, put me in touch with the Webmaster for the stimulus site. I’ve also got a call into the governor’s office. I’ll update when I hear back from them.
UPDATE: Behind the scenes, budget officials, agency coordinators and Web programmers are working to get additional information on the state’s stimulus site by the federal deadline in October. Among the possibilities are map mashups and raw data feeds and downloads.
Meanwhile, Paul Sund, Gov. Brad Henry’s spokesman, said the state ARRA Coordinating Council will meet again, but no definitive date has been set. The council last met in March.
–Paul
Are we obsessed with Web tracking?
How much is too much when it comes to tracking our lives on the Web? Has the deluge of information online made us think differently about we see our world?
USA Today has a fascinating story today on those questions, and more.
I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say that I can get a wee bit obsessive about tracking government information on the Web. After all, that’s part of my job description. But I hadn’t realized how much this story hit home until I thought about the time I’ve spent tracking purchases from Amazon or Apple. For example, when I bought my Apple laptop in 2005, I could track its movement from the factory in China to my doorstep in Oklahoma City. And I did. Obsessively.
Of course, I don’t think I’m quite to point where I track every instance of my life on the Web. That’s the subject of this story from Wired magazine. You can also check out The Quantified Self site here. And if you’re on Twitter, you can track your life using it with this project from data visualization site Flowing Data.
The prize for the most visually interesting personal metrics project has to go to graphic designer Nicholas Felton, who has been producing “annual reports” of his life since 2005. Here’s the latest cover from 2008:
Felton’s side project is called Daytum. The Wall Street Journal interviewed him for this story back in December. The Journal also helpfully put the phenomenon in historical context:
Today’s info-chroniclers are just the latest in a long history of diarists and scientists who kept notes by hand. Nineteenth-century English inventor and statistician Francis Galton, who introduced statistical concepts such as regression to the mean, was an obsessive counter who created the first weather map and carried a homemade object called a “registrator” to, among other things, measure people’s yawns and fidgets during his talks. (Mr. Galton’s preoccupation with data, specifically with human hereditary traits, also yielded an unsavory by-product — eugenics.)
In 1937, a social research organization called Mass Observation in London used about 2,000 volunteers to develop an “anthropology of ourselves.” For more than a decade, participants recorded such things as their neighbor’s bathroom habits and what end of their cigarettes they tapped before lighting up. Personal tracking also showed up in “Cheaper by the Dozen,” a 1948 book about efficiency experts Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth and their attempts to track and optimize the daily routines of their 12 children (including when they brushed their teeth and made their beds).
Finally, the award for too much information has to go to the squirm-inducing Bedpost!
–Paul
Oklahoma lobbyist gift database updated
Want to see which companies and lobbyists have given to state lawmakers and other officials?
Then check out the updated version of our Lobbyist Gift database on our Right to Know page.
Twice a year, the state Ethics Commission puts an Excel file on its Web site detailing gifts to lawmakers and public officials. We take the files, combine them into one database, and make them searchable online.
This summer’s update covers the first Legislative session since a new rule went into effect limiting lobbyist gifts to $100 per lawmaker. That means each lobbyist can give up to the $100 maximum for each lawmaker or official. The previous limit was $300 in a calendar year.
Just checking the database, the overwhelming share of gifts are either football and basketball tickets or meals. Of course, the popular stereotype is one of lawmakers getting wined and dined at fancy area restaurants. But my guess is that it’s always been more about time and access than big spending at ritzy restaurants. So the new gift limits, while laudable, may not be curtailing special interest influence as they were intended.
Here’s a few totals from the first half of 2009:
Source: Oklahoma Ethics Commission
(Full disclosure: My wife, Jennifer, is a former reporter who is now press secretary for the Speaker of the House. She shows up in the lobbyist gift database a few times under her maiden name, Mock, and her married name.)
