To Inform and Serve

So, one could be forgiven for envisioning an army of information experts perched in front of their phones and computers, ready to churn out any information a member of the press or public might request. It didn't quite work out that way for this story. In fact, it crossed my mind several times that the public information apparatus might be there more as a shield between the public and city governors.

Requests to the budget office were routed to the "Communications Office," or "Public Information Office." This office, part of the City Manager's office, has a proposed budget of $480,416. Their mission, according to the budget, is to "promote open government by clearly and effectively communicating information to the news media and the public about city programs and services. Information is also provided to the city coun-cil, city management, and departments."

I requested three lists:

* all the jobs being eliminated in the proposed city budget, listed by department, job title, and salary;

* notation of which job cuts were part of the delayering effort; and

* the 150 highest salaried city employees.

As mentioned in the main article, an assistant to the city manager has been compiling the delayering list since Garza requested it on August 17. It still isn't ready. Also unavailable was the list of eliminated jobs. After waiting a week, I took the liberty of saying that it seemed odd that such a list didn't exist. I was told that it existed, just not in the form I requested. Now, I had asked for the list by department, job title, and salary not only because that would be useful information, but also because I thought it would be easy to obtain, seeing as how the city's personnel log (not presented with the budget) is styled in that manner. Besides, shouldn't this have been in the budget anyway? Or perhaps a councilmember would have thought to request it at some point? Anyway, when the list was finally "compiled," a week after the initial request, it was in the same format as the personnel log.

Then there was the list of the 150 highest paid city employees, also requested by job title, salary, and department. This also took a week and cost $29 in programming charges. City public information officials explained that two other entities who had requested the same thing had been charged the same price. That seems fair enough, but if the information had already been run out, why didn't they just make a copy? It was only three pages. I could have gotten the information sooner and would still have paid the $29. The city could have made a profit. - D.S.