Tag Archives: personal services contracts

Another strange twist in the tale of the city’s “disclosure” of personal services contracts

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Hold on to your seats! Here we go on the latest round in the sunshine saga of how the city handles disclosure of a quarterly report of personal services contracts required since a 1997 city council resolution was adopted..

Document missingThe latest twist. The personal services contracts listing for the October-December 2009 period was released earlier this month, on schedule. It appears in the Docushare system under Department Communications for 2010. Well, actually, it doesn’t appear. The transmittal letter accompanying the listing is logged into the system as Dept. Com. 30, but the document itself is not included. No public viewing via Docushare, although virtually all other city documents of this kind are readily available. Instead, the transmittal letter bears a new and highly unusual stamp: “Document(s) on file with clerk’s office.”

Meaning: “Yeah, you win. It’s a public record. But we’re not going to roll over and make it easy for the public to actually see it. You’ll have to come and get it.”

And I’m guessing that when I show up at the City Clerk’s office, they’ll make me pay to get a copy.

Now, a review of the background on this issue.

Last summer, during my brief period of employment at City Hall, I noticed a discrepancy between the version of this contracts list that was sent to the city council and distributed to council offices, and the version that was made public via the city’s online Docushare system.

The problem: The original version produced by the city’s Department of Human Resources and circulated within the city council lists out each contract, the name of the person receiving the contract, and information about the position, duration, etc. But the names of those holding contracts were stripped out of the version made available to the public. It was as if they didn’t exist.

There really shouldn’t be any problem. The underlying personal services contracts themselves must be publicly disclosed since state law specifically makes all government contracts a matter of public record.

When I dug into the archive, I found the reports done from 1997 up until Mayor Hannemann’s election in 2004 made public properly, complete with names. But beginning with the first report issued after Hannemann’s election, the names went missing.

There was no response from the city after I first raised the question. When the next report was made public without names, I requested a copy of the original from Human Resources. It was produced, names intact, but, once again, the version of the same document that was made public via Docushare was altered to remove the names.

I noted that the situation raises legal questions:

State law (Section 710-1017 HRS) defines the offense of tampering to include:

(a) The person knowingly and falsely makes, completes, or alters, or knowingly makes a false entry in, a written instrument which is or purports to be a government record or a true copy thereof;

As the legal commentary to the statute notes:

This section is intended to penalize conduct which undermines confidence in the accuracy of public records. The accuracy of public records is essential to efficient public administration and, beyond the immediate context of public administration, the government has an interest in protecting public confidence in its records.

Apparently worried about the “altering a government record” problem, the city–or someone in the city–is now simply holding this document behind the counter, like stores used to do with adult magazines. But unlilke adult magazines, this listing is required to be a public record.

And still unknown: Why is this happening? Is the fact that it started as soon as Mayor Hannemann took office simply a coincidence?

Stay tuned.

Questions remain after city discloses unaltered personal services contract list

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Well, well.

Credit where credit is due.

I received an email from the director of the city’s Department of Human Resources yesterday afternoon (Thursday) with the quarterly list of personal services contracts for quarter ending Sept. 30 attached. It was delivered well within the 10-day response period provided, and the report was complete with the names of those holding these employment contracts.

So the Hannemann administration apparently didn’t hesitate to provide the report.

Now the situation gets murkier.

Here’s a link to the listing provided by Human Resources yesterday, minus the cover letter that transmitted a copy to the City Council last month.

And here’s the link to what should be the same document as entered into the city’s Docushare system which tracks public records. This version includes the cover letter from Human Resources Director Ken Nakamatsu, which has been duly stamped and filed as Department Communication 839.

Here’s where we hit the problem. The document entered into Docushare as Dept. Com. 839 is not the same document received and stamped as #839, as the names of those receiving the contracts have been deleted without notice.

And the immediate questions–Why are the names deleted? Who is responsible? On what authority was this being done? And, perhaps more importantly, now that the issue has been identified, what is the city going to do about it?

At this point, the City Council appears to be responsible for deleting the names from the report before it is filed with the City Clerk for entry into Docushare.

Another question follows–if this regular report is being altered without notice each time it is prepared, then are there other documents that are being similarly tampered with before being made public?

There’s a serious issue of public trust involved here. The Docushare system appears to provide the public with direct access to city records but, at least in the case of this quarterly report, what the public sees is not actually the official record.

Earlier, I questioned whether secretly altering or tampering with the report is legal.

State law (Section 710-1017 HRS) makes defines the offense of tampering to include:

(a) The person knowingly and falsely makes, completes, or alters, or knowingly makes a false entry in, a written instrument which is or purports to be a government record or a true copy thereof;

As the legal commentary to the statute notes:

This section is intended to penalize conduct which undermines confidence in the accuracy of public records. The accuracy of public records is essential to efficient public administration and, beyond the immediate context of public administration, the government has an interest in protecting public confidence in its records.

Putting that aside, though, now the issue is whether the council and the administration can work together to resolve this matter and assure the public that the public records we see are the real deal and not secretly altered replacements.

And, beyond that, there’s the substantive question of whether the reporting of personal services contracts raises any issues of favoritism or other hiring irregularities. I haven’t had time to fully review the unredacted document, but I let me know about any questionable things you might find, if any. You can email me, ian(at)ilind.net.