Agency wants records closed to shield whistle-blowers

Legislative Division of Post Audit looks to balance open government, employee protection

? A small state agency that often puts a spotlight on waste and inefficiencies in state government wants to increase protections of state employees who provide information.

Ironically, the way to do that may be in closing more records that are now public, said Barbara Hinton, the chief of the Legislative Division of Post Audit.

“I’m trying to provide more protection for people and at the same time recognize the need to balance that with the state’s sunshine policy,” Hinton said.

She already can close some information the office receives when conducting audits, but generally much of the working papers put together when composing an audit are open records once the audit is released.

Hinton recently asked a legislative committee that oversees her agency to be given broader discretion to keep private information in the office’s working papers.

The reason, she said, is that sometimes state employees tell her auditors they would like to provide more information but fear their bosses will retaliate and fire them.

If a person is fired for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing, they can sue the state, but that law doesn’t prevent a person from getting fired in the first place, she said.

The Legislative Post Audit Committee members said they wanted to study the issue further, noting the Kansas Open Records Act already has numerous exceptions.

“We need to be very cautious,” said Rep. Tom Burroughs, D-Kansas City.

Committee Joint Chairman Derek Schmidt, a Republican senator from Independence, said he wouldn’t want to adopt a rule a state employee relied on then see the rule overturned in court and the employee left with no protection.

Several committee members said they wanted to consider what audit offices in other states do as far as providing public access to their working documents.

Hinton said there was a wide range of practices.

Montana’s rules are similar to Kansas in keeping the working papers open to the public, but state auditors’ working papers in Arizona, Colorado and Missouri are confidential by law.

In Utah, the records are public except audit work papers that would disclose the identity of a person who alleged waste or wrongdoing if that person sought identity protection.

Schmidt said, “I wouldn’t want to go beyond the Utah approach.”

The committee will discuss proposed changes at its next meeting, which hasn’t yet been scheduled.

Hinton said the issue of protecting state employees who make allegations had been discussed for a long time and that she was not proposing changes because of any increase in complaints within agencies about state government.

The state audit office’s findings often result in changes in state law or how state agencies conduct business.