Too many government agencies have their public records buried in their websites, obscurely titled and often vital records aren’t indexed online at all.

Last year, I wrote about Connecticut towns that included civil unions among their online records indexes. New Hampshire year-end town reports — which you would think are just about tax revenue and budgets — include births, marriages, civil unions, deaths and burials that have been registered that year. This usually follows, unannounced, after the town clerk’s revenue report. In this example, the vital records for the year begin on page 187! These are all pdf’s, so you can easily save them to your computer should you be so inclined.

Is this common knowledge among New Hampshire private investigators?

Apart from searching around the government website for the “town of” to find the annual report, you can query it from a search engine. One of the key phrases is, “RESIDENT CIVIL UNION REPORT” or replace “civil union” with “marriage”, “death”, etc. Now if you want to search a name and don’t know the year or even the town, you know your research gets more complicated. But start by adding “lastname firstname” to the above search query. The website archive.org has a collection of some New Hampshire town reports and you can search across them by name, like this: “lastname firstname” site:archive.org. If that returns too many documents, add key phrases, such as, intitle:”annual report of the town” or “place of birth”.

Now they are, but then they weren’t. The law hadn’t changed. I made a California Public Records Act (CPRA) request for an electronic record of the names and license numbers for all certified nurse assistants and home health aides, maintained by the Department of Public Health (CDPH). The request was denied as “an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” That was two years ago.

I asked for the certifications because the CDPH had removed the name search feature from its online database. That was never explained. At that time, you had to search by certification number to get the name. Not useful. Obstructionist. And definitely not in keeping with CPRA or Proposition 59.

The Department of Consumer Affairs has online professional license databases — searchable by company name, licensee, location, license number and in some cases, employee — for all professions they regulate. But the CDPH name lookup was only for nursing home administrators.

A few weeks ago, my fellow PI, Jean, excitedly called me and said that the CDPH website had enabled a search by the certificate holder’s name. No announcement or explanation was given. But there it is, the California Department of Health, Certification Verification Search.

Now it seems to be a public record even though Michael Egstad, Chief (why do we use that word?) of the Certification Unit, cited the Information Practices Act (IPA) — Civil Code 1798.24 — and Government Code 6254 (c) and (k) as justification for denying records that “disclose personal information in a manner that would link the information disclosed to the individual…”. In other words, we can’t give you the names of certificate holders because then the public would…know the names of the certificate holders! News organizations spend a lot of money suing public agencies over just this sort of nonsense and to maintain open records.

Terry Franke, CalAware General Counsel, succinctly told me, “A request under the CPRA trumps the confidentiality provisions of the IPA—as declared in the IPA itself.”

And here it is:

Civil Code Section 1798.24. No agency may disclose any personal information in a manner that would link the information disclosed to the individual to whom it pertains unless the information is disclosed, as follows:
*****
(g) Pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code).

Make a donation to Californians Aware, which agitates to keep government records open and accessible.

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The rest of my favorite links are here.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds “Section 8” housing, — locally administered, publicly owned housing — usually multi-unit buildings that residents can apply to live in who meet certain income, age or disability criteria.

HUD-funded multi-unit buildings are searchable by state in the HUD, Affordable Apartment Search database. A list of these is also available from the city or county housing authority and is often posted on the agency website.

Available rental units can be found in the searchable database, goSection8.com.

Housing assistance vouchers are also given to qualified recipients for rental of pre-approved privately owned residences. You’ll have to request a list of these from the city or county housing authority because they aren’t published on the agencies websites.

The types of documents kept by HUD on the construction of public housing and financing arrangements can be researched at the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Title 24.

The local housing authorities publish an administrative plan, which details the policies governing the operation of these facilities. They also have records on the private property owners who are participants in the voucher program.

The files on individuals who receive housing assistance funds or live in publicly owned buildings are maintained by the local housing authority. By law, access is limited – the recipient or their parents or guardians have explicit access – but practices may vary.

What types of housing authority records have you been able to obtain and what did you find there?

The proposed California Senate Bill 501, “Local government: compensation disclosure”, isn’t an earth-shattering transparency measure. Particularly in light of the Bell city government pay debacle.

The measure would require officers and designated employees to annually file a compensation disclosure form listing their salary and non monetary benefits. I thought the payroll department knew these figures. It seems odd that the employee is providing this. And anyway, what’s a “designated employee”?

“Designated employee” means a designated employee of a county, city, city and county, school district, special district, or joint
powers agency formed pursuant to the Joint Exercise of Powers Act
(Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 6500) of Division 7 of Title 1)
who is required to file a statement of economic interests pursuant to
Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 87100) of Title 9.

Get it? Not every employee must file the disclosure form, just the same people who are required to file a Form 700, Statement of Economic Interests. According to the California Fair Political Practices Commission that is “certain state and local elected officials, judges, high level state employees, and certain employees for the assembly and senate.”

Since the names, job classifications, salary, compensation and retirement benefits of every local and state government employee in California are a public record why aren’t they all online? In fact, this almost never happens. Hermosa Beach may be the only California municipality to post names and salaries of all employees. Trawl through these links for starters.

Just as we have seen a scramble by California local governments to claim the moral high ground by posting salary schedules (post Bell, no workers’ names) on their websites, the same sites may come down if they balk at the bill’s mandate:

If the county, city, city and county, school district, special district, or joint powers agency maintains an Internet Web site, it shall post the information contained on the filed compensation disclosure form on that Internet Web site.

Otherwise, it’s back to fighting the local agencies, and paying the designated fees!

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  Salary and compensation and employee reviews for some companies.

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The rest of my favorite links are here.