When it comes to offering the public access to government documents, North Carolina ranks among the most restrictive states. Its sunshine laws are better described as mostly cloudy with a chance of refusal.
But a step toward more public access is being offered by three Republican state senators, Bill Rabon, Norm Sanderson and Joyce Krawiec. They are sponsoring Senate Bill 355: “An act to strengthen confidence in government by increasing accessibility of public personnel, hiring, firing and performance records.”
The bill would broaden the disclosure requirement for personnel files involving all North Carolina public employees, including teachers and all enforcement officers. In particular it would require a “general description of the reasons for each promotion, demotion, dismissal, transfer, suspension, separation, or other change in position classification.”
Currently, an explanation is required only in the event of a firing.
North Carolina last expanded access to public employee personnel records in 2010 in response to The News & Observer’s series “Keeping Secrets,” written by Dan Kane. Those changes required public agencies to explain the reasons for a firing, but other disciplinary actions can be listed without explanation. This change would further open public employees’ disciplinary records to public review.
The prospect of more disclosure will pressure managers to take action against misconduct or incompetence, rather than allowing it to continue, or letting the employee move on to another agency.
Advocates for public employees oppose the bill, arguing that it could make baseless complaints against a public employee public record. Ardis Watkins. executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, told The News & Observer that releasing salary and position information about a public employee is acceptable, but airing potentially unfair allegations goes too far.
“It’s a far cry different to have your salary, your basic information, available to the world than to have even unfounded accusations in your file and passed around,” she said.
The North Carolina Association of Educators is also opposed. “North Carolina is already facing a shortage of educators, and this bill will be detrimental to goal of recruiting and retaining the best educators for our students,” the group said in a statement.
Of course, strictly personal information in a personnel file should be exempt from public release, but disciplinary actions are as much an issue for the agency as the employee and should be available for public review.
The bill would help advance a recommendation by North Carolina’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, which calls for more transparency regarding complaints of excessive force against law enforcement officers.
Attorney General Josh Stein, a co-chairman of the task force, appears hesitant to support applying such disclosure to all public employee personnel files. A spokeswoman for Stein’s office said, “Attorney General Stein would like to see a standalone bill that addresses the issue of law enforcement transparency.”
Gov. Roy Cooper should have no ambivalence about more transparency in public employees’ personnel records. As a Democratic state senator in 1997, Cooper sponsored a bill that would have made public disciplinary records involving employees of school boards, municipalities, state agencies and the UNC system. The bill passed the Senate, but did not come up for a House vote.
Senate Bill 355 is not about targeting public employees. It is about bringing North Carolina up to a national standard for transparency and accountability. No employee – public or private – is well served when the poor performance or misconduct of a fellow employee is not given attention. Sens. Rabon Sanderson and Krawiec deserve credit for proposing this improvement in accountability. More transparency about personnel actions will benefit both the public and public servants.
"Opinion" - Google News
April 03, 2021 at 02:20AM
https://ift.tt/3dy9DSb
Opinion | The public should know why NC public employees are promoted, disciplined and fired - Richmond County Daily Journal
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment