FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION

OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

 

In the Matter of a Complaint by                                         FINAL DECISION

 

Julie Carter,

 

                        Complainant,

 

            against                                                       Docket #FIC 87-198

 

Lebanon Board of Education and Attorney Robert Murphy, Counsel to the Lebanon Board of Education,

 

                        Respondents                                             February 24, 1988

 

            The above-captioned matter was heard as a contested case on August 11, 1987, at which time the complainant and the respondent attorney appeared, stipulated to certain facts and presented testimony, exhibits and argument on the complaint.

 

            After consideration of the entire record, the following facts are found:

 

            1.  The respondents are public agencies within the meaning of §1-18a(a), G.S.

 

            2.  On July 9, 1987, the complainant requested a copy of a list of teachers who had been evaluated by the respondent board and a transcript of a hearing which occurred June 3, 1987.

 

            3.  The respondent board claimed it did not have to provide a transcript of the hearing until the complainant paid them in advance the eighteen hundred dollars which the transcript would cost.

 

            4.  It further claimed that it had provided the complainant's attorney with a list of teachers evaluated on July 20, 1987.

 

            5.  It is found that the respondent board had no list of teachers it had evaluated, but that it created such a list and sent it to the complainant's attorney.

 

            6.  It is found that the respondent board did not violate the Freedom of Information Act when it failed to provide the list to the complainant on July 9, 1987 because, on that date, no list of teachers existed.

 

Docket #FIC 87-198                                      page two

 

            7.  It is found that under §1-15, G.S., the respondents may require the complainant to prepay the cost of producing a transcript.

 

            The following order by the Commission is hereby recommended on the basis of the record concerning the above-captioned complaint:

 

            1.  The complaint is hereby dismissed.

 

            2.  Since the respondents now have the list of teachers and since, upon filing a new Freedom of Information request, the complainant would be entitled to receive it, the Commission encourages the respondents to send her the list.

 

            Approved by order of the Freedom of Information Commission at its regular meeting of February 24, 1988.

 

                                                                                                   

                                                                             Catherine H. Lynch

                                                                             Acting Clerk of the Commission