The University administration and faculty will try again to address proposed policy revisions designed to comply with the Inspection of Public Records Act at the regents meeting on Aug. 12.
President David Schmidly sent an open letter to the UNM community July 24, after the IPRA Compliance Working Group proposed revisions to three policies concerning the Act. The group was composed of faculty and staff who challenged the regents' plan to alter University policy regarding the confidentiality of faculty and staff records at the regents meeting in June.
Schmidly said in his letter that the revisions he plans to make to the policy will comply with state law and will still protect faculty and members' personal information.
The proposed policy revisions now allow employees to opt out of releasing their current home addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Social Security numbers, financial account numbers and medical records would be protected as well.
Though compliance with the Public Records Act would usually include disclosing job application materials, the board will likely vote to protect these during the application process and only produce those materials if requested after applications are no longer being accepted.
Regent Jack Fortner said it is important for UNM faculty and staff to understand that the changes being made to the existing public records policies are in compliance with state law.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
"The Public Records Act is a tough thing to deal with, but it's still the law, and so the University has to be open - public entities have to be open," Fortner said. "I'm a former county commissioner of San Juan County, and so I know how important it is to have an open government and an open university so that people will have confidence in that government or university."
Fortner said the initial objections the Faculty Senate had to the policy changes should be resolved during the next regents meeting.
"We never thought that what they wanted was unreasonable," Fortner said. "We just thought that what they wanted didn't comply with the Public Records Act. So, through dialogue - and really through some of the regents, the Journal and the faculty and staff - we were able to reach an agreement that everyone can live with."
Former Faculty Senate President Jacqueline Hood said she participated in the IPRA Compliance Working Group, and the compromise between the group's proposed policy changes and Schmidly's proposed policy changes was disheartening. Hood said releasing the names and information of potential employees would discourage people from applying to work at the University.
"From my perspective, it seemed like most of the committee members are disappointed by the way this has come out," Hood said. "It seems as if we could have stayed within the Attorney General's guidelines and offered greater protection for faculty and staff than it ended up being. So, I think that was a bit of a disappointment."
Fortner said the compromise was fair.
"I think the agreement was something that everybody can live with, and it was a good thing to set limitations on access to addresses and Social Security numbers - the things that people want to keep confidential," Fortner said. "But they're not really going to be confidential because, of course, if a guy is registered to vote, you can just go to the county clerk's office and get a copy of their voter registration."
Hood said she was also concerned with the Albuquerque Journal's participation in the construction of the revised policies.
Chuck Peifer, attorney for the Albuquerque Journal and the Foundation for Open Government, said the regents looked to the two organizations for assistance in the policy debate because they had more experience with the open records laws than any other organization in the state.
Peifer said the University has lost open records cases in the past because its old policies and practices were in violation of the law.
