the public record

... its cost is high

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Well, believe it or not, I am giving Goliath a break. Right now I have another fish to fry. From time to time I make a public records request to my local government here where I live in Portland, Oregon. My last such request has currently escalated to the point that the local public records office will only provide the statistics if I write them a check for approximately $3000. They claim that my request is just too much work for them. What am I asking for? I have pared the request down a few times to help make it easier, here is the last iteration:

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Please provide monthly statistics in regards to the following criteria for the entire Multnomah County staff as an aggregate. The time periods requested are: 2019, 2020 (only Jan, Feb, Sept, Oct, Nov & Dec), 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024.

1. Total number of Multnomah County employees as of the 1st day of each month requested.

2. Total combined regular schedule work hours for all Multnomah County staff as of the 1st day of each month requested.

3. Total combined hours not worked on their regular schedules (that is not vacation or holiday use) for all Multnomah County staff for each month requested.

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This is what requires a $3000 check to perform.

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I have started a crowd fund in order to raise the money required to complete this request. If you can help me accomplish this, I would be most grateful. And you can rest assured that I will be sharing the results right here. Here is the link to the Give Send Go fund raiser:

https://givesendgo.com/multnomahrecordscost?utm_source=sharelink&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=multnomahrecordscost

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Most of you can stop reading here. But if anyone would be interested in the evolution of my request, I will provide here an archive of the entire email exchange:

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Dear custodian of records,

Under the Oregon Public Records Law, §192.410 et seq., I am requesting to obtain copies of public records that pertain to county employee leave statistics in Multnomah County for the calendar years 2015 through 2023.

If you could please provide the following:

The total number of Multnomah County employees for each calendar year 2015 through 2023.

The total number of hours this combined Multnomah County staff works in their regular schedules for each calendar year 2015 through 2023.

The total number of hours not worked by all combined Multnomah County staff for any sort of medical leave (sick, FMLA, short term disability, catastrophic leave, etc.) for each calendar year 2015 through 2023.

The total number of hours not worked by all combined Multnomah County staff for any sort of medical leave (sick, FMLA, short term disability, catastrophic leave, etc.) for each month in calendar years 2020 through 2024.

If there are any fees for searching or copying these records, please inform me if the cost will exceed $25. However, I would also like to request a waiver of all fees in that the disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest and will contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of how Multnomah County employees functioned before and after the coronavirus pandemic. This information is not being sought for commercial purposes. If you expect a significant delay in responding to or in fulfilling this request, please contact me with information about when I might expect copies of the data.

Thank you for considering my request.

Sincerely,

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Hi. I sent this public records request to the press office a few days ago. I got worried I may have sent it to them in error. I see that you are the contact for human resources and payroll, so I thought maybe I should send it to you instead. Please let me know if I need to do anything further.

Thank you very much.

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Hello,

I'm confirming that I have received your request. I've copied the Press Office so that we don't duplicate efforts.

I will need to coordinate with our Payroll Office on this data request, and it may take longer than 10 business days, as the data spans two different HRIS systems (our current one, and the previous).

I'll be in touch when I have a better estimate.

Thank you

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Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Hi Jay,

Just letting you know that Kelli alerted us to a records request you filed with the press office on Sept. 25. We found that in our spam folder today with her prompting. She is working on the request, but we will work to make sure the system recognizes you going forward.

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Thank you for reaching out. A public information officer will respond to your request as soon as possible.

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Thank you all for your help. I truly appreciate it.

Best,

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Jay,

Our Payroll unit, who maintains a lot of this data, has some clarifying questions and information to share with you. I've copied our Payroll Manager so we can all work this through.

There are a lot of items in this request that I do not think we will be able to provide 2015 - 2019 is in SAP (an archived HR Information System) and we have limited data that we have access to.

The information from Workday (current HR Information System) may be very challenging.

In order to provide the best possible documentation is it possible to get a little more context on the request, for example what are they trying to accomplish with the data? This might help us in determining if and how we can get the information. There are times when people requesting data are trying to accomplish something in particular but the data they are requesting is not what would accomplish that ending result, I am hoping that with more context we can find a way to get to what is actually needed.

Thank you.

Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Hi Kelli. I really tried to make this request as simple as possible. The goal is to compare statistics for county employee work attendance before and after the coronavirus pandemic. Looking at leave numbers in the years before and after provide a proper comparison. By including several years before 2020 we can establish a previous "norm" to then contrast the post pandemic years to. But any leave numbers have to be in the context of the county staff's normal schedule expected to be worked. Does that make sense?

I had assumed that all if this data would normally be reported to county commissioners on a yearly basis - I would expect that if I was in such a position.

Have I provided enough context for you to move forward on this?

Let me know if I need to explain it further.

Thanks for your help.

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Jay,

That data is actually not provided to the Commissioners as you assumed.

We do not have any existing report that pulls all that data.

Per state law for public records requests, we are only required to provide data or reports that already exist in reportable format.

As this report/data does not exist, it's not a public record, and thus there is no public record to release.

Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Thank you Kelli. I apologize for assuming that the information I am interested in was a normal statistic that county leadership would be interested in.

Can I ask, is the issue with my request that it has more than one component? If I only asked for the number of employees in each calendar year 2015 thru 2023, you could do that right?

If so, should I make a separate request for each individual aspect of my original inquiry?

Please help me understand how to work with you on this.

I truly appreciate any assistance you can provide.

Best regards,

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Jay, the issue is that the data you're looking for doesn't exist in a report of any kind. There is no public record of that data.

We would have to pull raw data from multiple sources, compile it from different systems and sources, and then do a significant amount of data aggregation.

Even if you break the request down into separate requests, those are reports that don't exist, and thus are not a public record.

Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Thank you Kelli for explaining why you can't provide the information in my request. I also thank you for providing me the link to the state law regarding public records requests. In trying to learn more about how to do this correctly, I came across this part of the law:

"However, a public body is required to retrieve pre-existing information, which includes electronic data stored in databases.[36] This obligation exists regardless of whether the public body has actually generated a report for its own use that contains the requested data. Information is not exempt from disclosure simply because it is stored electronically or because retrieving the data would require a public body to query its information systems in ways it otherwise might not."

Maybe I still do not understand all that is involved here, and I apologize again for that, but this seems to contradict what you just told me.

If you need me to tell you exactly where that is stated in the link you provided me, I would be glad to do so.

Best regards,

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Kelli, since your rationale for denying my request appears to go against the state law you provided to me, will you be reconsidering answering it now?

If so, please tell me how I can make it a smoother process on my part. I would be glad to make separate requests for smaller segments of the original request.

Sincerely,

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Jay, I'm consulting with the County Attorney's office on this matter and will get back to you.

Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Thank you Kelli.

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Jay,

As I indicated yesterday, there is no one report that the county can run to fulfill this request. However, there may be a combination of reports that may give some or all of the information you have requested.

I have the Payroll and Benefits teams researching:

what reports that exist would have this data, and what data we don't have reports for

how we'd need to combine or compile the information to fulfill your request, and

how much time is involved

For a request this large and time consuming, we will not be able to waive a fee.

It will take a couple of weeks for us to assess the above bullet points, and come up with an estimate for how much time it will take to gather and provide the data.

When I have that estimate, I will let you know what that is.

Thank you,

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Thank you Kelli, that sounds more than fair.

Again, if there is anything that I can do to adjust how my inquiry is structured to make the process less burdensome, please let me know.

best regards,

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Thanks Jay, it would help a lot if we could change the time frame to start in 2019. Getting data from our old system is a huge barrier.

Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Kelli, I wish that was an option, but that would make the request pointless. The goal is to compare the years leading up to the pandemic to the ones after. Using only one pre-pandemic year would not be enough data to be useful.

If I make a compromise on the request and say I want to start at 2017 with all the data, would that help?

let me know,

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Hi Kelli. After some thought, I will agree to your request to only begin with the year 2019. I really don't wish to cause any trouble for you, and I had no idea that my question was potentially this burdensome. I was honestly naive and thought these things were normally assessed.

I will have to amend the parameters slightly from the original to be all monthly data, instead of some of it only yearly.

I'll restate the new request here:

For the calendar years 2019 through 2024, I would like monthly statistics for the total Multnomah County employees on the payroll, what their combined expected work hours are, and lastly their combined hours not worked for any sort of medical leave (sick, FMLA, short term disability, catastrophic leave, etc.).

I am hoping that this reduced timeframe will give a fair analysis of the pre and post pandemic trends. I am only interested in an honest appraisal, so if the comparison is lacking integrity, I may ask for the earlier data at another time.

I hope this helps Kelli.

Thanks for working with me on this.

best regards,

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Jay,

I met with our Payroll team and Leave teams today about this data.

Neither of them have the right access to reports in Workday, so I'll need to work with the Workday administrators on this record request.

Those I met with today wanted me to point out some data points that will contribute to a flawed representation of what you are looking for:

Short Term Disability does not have a time code entry. It's an insurance claim. So that is not something we can report out from Workday.

E-FMLA (emergency FMLA) existed only during COVID. It was created to allow special leave for COVID related illness, vaccines, and caring for those with COVID. E-FMLA was activated, deactivated, reactivated numerous times during and after the pandemic, so numbers will be inconsistent. Additionally, it was also allowed for leave related to parents who didn't have child care and couldn't work due to caring for dependents. So that data isn't illness related, but there is no way to parse that out in the data.

E-FMLA and emergency sick leave are leave codes that didn't exist ever before COVID, so there is no comparator. They also don't exist for use now.

Telework has permanently altered leave statistics as, for example, an employee can safely work from home with a minor cold, and not infect others. Pre-covid they may have taken a sick day for the same thing, but while teleworking, they choose to work.

The Library was closed for months. There was no need to take leave for illness during that time, as the employees weren't working. There will be no data for that set of employees.

I wanted you to have that information before I reached out to the Workday team.

As conservative estimate of the time it will take to pull this raw data, and then aggregate it into any usable format would likely be a minimum of 4 hours of time for a Workday Administrator.

We bill for records requests at the total compensation rate of the staff involved, for the hours we expect it to take.

4 hours of work for the person/people pulling this data would come to $363.90.

Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Thank you Kelli for providing this very comprehensive breakdown of the variables in staff leave use during the extraordinary time of the pandemic. In light of your explanation, and the reality of how labor intensive accomplishing my request appears to be, I wonder if I can rephrase it again to try and make things easier for everyone?

What if we exclude the months in 2020 that are most problematic for the reasons you outlined above? So, for 2020 I would only ask for monthly statistics for January, February, September, October, November and December. In addition to that change, I wonder if we could rephrase the leave data request like this?:

"total number of hours not worked for any leave that was not vacation or holiday use"

If you think these adjustments would be helpful please let me know. If so, I would be glad to put the new request in a new email, for clarity.

Also, how would paying the fee be administered? Would you need payment before compiling any data?

Thanks Kelli, I appreciate everyone's help.

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Thanks Jay,

I'm going to present this request to the Workday team, both your modified request of 10/4 and this modified request of 10/15.

They'll need to determine how much time they think it will take, as the actual folks doing it, not the previous group's best guess.

Once they have an estimate I'll get back to you with an official amount.

We'd need payment, our only option at this point is by check, before the work is actually done.

Press Office - I'm going to stop copying you on this as we work through this request.

Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Sounds good, thanks Kelli.

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Hi Jay,

The Workday team has some clarifying questions:

1. In regards to medical leave, are they looking for time off related to a medical leave of absence? for example: an employee can take a sick day, but not be on a particular leave. Additionally, some staff are on medical leave and will use Vacation if they are out of Sick time.

2. What about time worked over their regular schedule (overtime etc....)

3. Should the data be supplied by year or each month?

4. In order to provide analysis, can you ask what is the purpose of this request?

Thanks Jay,

Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Hi Kelli. I think here I will restate the new version of the request. I really do think the improved wording will eliminate a few of your last questions.

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Please provide monthly statistics in regards to the following criteria for the entire Multnomah County staff as an aggregate. The time periods requested are: 2019, 2020 (only Jan, Feb, Sept, Oct, Nov & Dec), 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024.

1. Total number of Multnomah County employees as of the 1st day of each month requested.

2. Total combined regular schedule work hours for all Multnomah County staff as of the 1st day of each month requested.

3. Total combined hours not worked on their regular schedules (that is not vacation or holiday use) for all Multnomah County staff for each month requested.

______________________

It really can be that simplified. Your staff need not complicate the request any further.

My goal remains the same, I am researching how Multnomah County staff functioned before and after the pandemic.

Thanks for your help Kelli. And thank the others as well.

best regards,

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Thank you Jay for your clarification. The Workday team met and determined what it would take to pull this data together.

Analyzing and compiling the data in a readable format for approximately 6,500 staff for each month will take some time. It will take about 30 minutes for each data set requested (1, 2 ,and 3).

The request is 63 months of data. (63 x .5 hours = 31.5 hours) plus at least two hours to compile it all into a file.

The total compensation rate for the person who will create and run these reports, and compile the data is $85.14 (down from the $90.97 previously mentioned).

$85.14 x 33.5 hours = $2852.19.

This does not include, and we won't bill you for, the approximate 4.75 hours that seven employees have spent on this already at an expense of $380.41.

As I'd mentioned, this is an extraordinarily large request, requiring building of reports that don't exist, and analyzing and compiling data.

Additionally, as this will need to be done in addition to the team's regular work, it will likely take several weeks.

If you'd like us to move forward, and you are prepared to pay the $2852.19 fee, let me know, and I'll prepare an invoice for you so you can submit payment.

Administrative Analyst, Sr.

Multnomah County Central Human Resources

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Thanks Kelli. I am very sorry that my request has developed the way that it has. I assure you that I tried to present it in the most simple way that I could.

It will take me some time to collect the funds necessary to pay your much increased fee from your initial estimate of $363.90. I will be starting a crowd fund to raise the $2852.19 that you now have stated is the revised cost - plus I will add your email response research fee in my crowd fund and pay you back for all the hard work you have already done. I feel bad about how difficult this process has been for you so far.

I will have to explain my need in the crowd funding effort, and unfortunately I will have to share many of the details contained in our lengthy email exchange. Since this discussion is in fact a public record, you should have no issue with that, I would expect.

Please thank everyone that has helped you get the information you have provided for me.

best regards,