PRESS RELEASE

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	October 19, 2005

BUFFALO BOARD/U.B. FOUNDATION MUST PROVIDE INFORMATION TO UNIONS

In a strongly worded analysis of law, Camille S. Jobin-Davis, Assistant Director of the NYS Committee on Open Government, has issued an advisory opinion that the UB Foundation's Center for Applied Technologies/Education Innovation Consortium and the Buffalo School District must comply with the Buffalo Teachers Federation's (BTF) and Administrators' (BCSA) freedom of information requests.

The UB Foundation had denied the unions' FOIL requests claiming that the UB Foundation was exempt from the Freedom of Information Law. In addition, the school district had, according to the unions, supplied them with information that did not comply with the Unions' FOIL requests.

The unions have been filing FOIL requests since July 2004 seeking information on $4-8 million in funds apparently allocated by the school district to the Foundation.

The unions are asking for:

• an accounting of all funds
• who received the funds and how much
• (The unions believe that District employees and relatives of Board members might have received funding.)
• See letters for additional subjects - available from BTF.

Ms. Joblin-Davis' letter states, "From our perspective, based upon judicial decisions even if EIC/CATE has no independent responsibility to comply with the Freedom of Information Law, we believe that its records fall within the coverage of that statute."

Her letter further states that not only are the UB Foundation's records relating to the school district available under the law, in addition, the UB Foundation itself (including all of its records) might well be considered a covered agency under the Freedom of Information Law. Ms. Jobin-Davis points out that information must be forwarded within five business days to comply with the requests.

"We have been seeking information on the expenditure of $4-8 million by the Board and the UB Foundation but have been stonewalled by the UB Foundation and buried in mountains of paperwork that don't fully comply with our requests for information. If the Board and UB Foundation have nothing to hide, why have they been stonewalling us for over a year?

If necessary, we will go to court to obtain the information that the public has a right to know." Phil Rumore, President of the BTF, stated.

Rumore also made public a letter from Board member Ralph Hernandez with which the District has never complied.