Peeling the Spin: A Condensed Look at OPRA Requests

Jan 21, 202310 Comments

There are currently 118 individual screenshots of OPRA (Open Public Records Act) requests, from June 2022 to the present, on the district website. In an effort to parse this out and make it easier to get to the meat of the issue surrounding the appointment of a School Records Custodian, here is a breakdown.

Of the 118 posted screenshots, five are not OPRA requests but are merely correspondence.

Of the remaining 113 screenshots, 23 are duplicates or minor corrections made by the same sender.

Of the remaining 90, roughly 20 are duplicates from different senders. This is an approximate, conservative number, as these are worded differently. The number could be as high as 30, but this gives the benefit of the doubt as to when OPRA responses could potentially be combined.

That leaves 70 (or fewer) requests over an eight-month period.

Of the 70 requests, five are for legal bills, which we have now learned are handled by the law firm Cleary, Giacobbe, Alfieri, Jacobs, LLC. They may be sent to the requestor by the Business Administrator, but the necessary redactions are not her responsibility.

Of the final 65 (or fewer) unique OPRA requests that are the responsibility of the Business Administrator, 19 are requests for headers. Headers are compiled using software and search terms.

There are 27 requests for specific emails sent to/from various individuals. These can also be compiled by using software and search terms.

After taking into account these requests for emails and headers, we see 19 requests that must be responded to in a manner that has the potential to take a more significant amount of time. Nineteen, over an eight-month period.

These 19 requests represent a wide range of interest. One is a request for receipts related to the purchase of audio/visual equipment to enable the Board of Education to use Zoom at Governor Livingston for Board meetings. Another is a request for books, lesson plans and topics to be covered under the new health and sexual education mandates.

One is a request for the Business Administrator to provide information as to which OPRA requests are taking her 95 hours to complete. The response to that, so far, has been to state that there is no supporting documentation.

And on that last note, it is important to remember that more than a few of these requests are never fulfilled, but are considered “vague”, “too broad”, “privileged” and are denied and closed.

Please ask our Board of Education members to demand an accounting before they agree to spend ever more of our tax dollars on yet another administrative position. It’s well past time to stop giving blind acceptance to anything put before them by this Superintendent and Business Administrator.