One Year Later, Baltimore County Schools’ Financial Disclosure Doc Shredding to Remain a Mystery

The Baltimore Post lost a battle last Tuesday after appealing to Baltimore County Public Schools’ administration, asking for the release of suppressed emails related to the shredding of roughly 2,600 financial disclosure statements last year.

Upholding two attorneys’ rulings that the emails were not public information due to a legal exemption which states they are part of “attorney-client work product” and are, therefore, “privileged” communications, the school board concurred with the previous decisions despite The Baltimore Post’s yearlong attempts to obtain any information specific to the April 27, 2018 and August 1, 2018 shredding of the financial records.

In fact, according to numerous responses to Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) requests and denials from the same law office that destroyed the records, it is as if the shredding of the financial records did not occur at all.

“(The) emails will not be disclosed at this time pursuant to your request,” board attorney, Andrew Nussbaum, said in an email on Monday.

But other than a 56-page destruction log which recorded the dates of the document destruction, the emails are the only known records that relate to the shredding event.

Yet the law office – and now the school board – will not release them. 

Additionally, attorneys in the law office have not responded to questions surrounding the timing of the document destruction which coincided with The Baltimore Post’s investigation into several key employees’ financial ties. The destruction of the documents both impaired the investigation and restricted access to public information...

https://thebaltimorepost.com/one-year-later-baltimore-county-schools-financial-disclosure-shredding-to-remain-a-mystery/?fbclid=IwAR17plUuJfpbvtPHBODWcicn874bXC9_7HL47DB0BTb5cDp18UsBnmatTi8