This is the people's business

The Press is formally requesting that representatives from the Idaho Attorney General's office reprise their excellent mobile workshop on public record and open meeting laws, which they so graciously brought to North Idaho several years ago.

But until that can happen, we urge local elected officials to refamiliarize themselves with the contents of a guide to those laws:

http://www.ag.idaho.gov/publications/legalManuals/PublicRecordsLaw.pdf

This week, The Press got the run-around on one of the most basic rights citizens possess: The right to know how their elected officials are spending taxpayers' money. In this particular case, the newspaper wanted to know the employment status of someone who appeared to be on the county's payroll but may or may not be doing any actual work for the county.

We'll save the county - and every other public official within shouting distance - a few minutes' research. According to the attorney general's public records booklet:

"Question: What are the law's requirements relating to employee or personnel records?

"Answer: There is one standard for disclosure of personnel information for all public employers: required disclosure of a current or former employee's or public official's 'employment history, classification, pay grade and step, longevity, gross salary and salary history, status, workplace and employing agency.' The Legislature acknowledges that there is some loss of privacy when one accepts a position supported by public money."

Ours was a simple quest to document how a county employee had received a $315,000 payout from ICRMP - the Idaho Counties Risk Management Plan - and to try to understand how that employee also was given a "temporary, full-time" position with the county "for 11 pay periods." ICRMP responded almost instantly to our public records request. At least initially, the county played pass-the-hot-potato. County Prosecutor Barry McHugh and Commissioner Dan Green did step up fairly quickly.

Because some details of the ICRMP settlement probably fall into the "personnel" category of public record exemptions that were muddied further by a nasty lawsuit, county officials may have thought they were obligated to shun our initial information requests. As outlined clearly above, citizens have every right to know if a public employee is currently working, where he's physically working, what his current status as an employee is, and exactly how much he's getting paid.

In itself, this particular case might be nothing more than a rather astonishing workplace embarrassment. But the deeper we dig on this and other public employee fronts - on several levels, not just the county - the more puzzling pictures appear to be materializing.

The public should be able to see those pictures clearly, and the only way for that to happen is for elected officials at all levels to fully understand and comply with laws overseeing the public's right to know. We'll keep digging, and we think they should be right there with us, shovels in hand.