How California agencies are keeping misconduct investigations secret despite transparency laws

that the district had fired her because its probe found she interfered in a school investigation of a student accused of bullying her daughter; Phelps has denied the allegations.

Keeping investigation findings secret by citing attorney-client privilege is a trend that some transparency advocates worry is obscuring important information from the public that they would otherwise have the right to know.to records about substantiated public employee misconduct allegations, as well as discipline of public employees under the California Public Records Act.

“Whether or not this is the intent, it certainly has the effect,” said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition. “It definitely has the potential to compromise transparency.”Public agencies are able to claim attorney-client privilege as a reason to keep such investigation findings secret largely thanks to a 2016 appealsIn that case, a female firefighter in Petaluma had filed a state complaint alleging sexual harassment and retaliation.

“I don’t know why the public shouldn’t have a right to those portions of an attorney’s investigation that are just about the facts of what happened,” he said. The district has kept the report secret because it’s not possible to redact the report of potentially identifiable student and employee information, Poway school board President Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff said in an email to the Union-Tribune.

She said the district was only obligated by Phelps’ contract to provide her a letter before her termination explaining why the board was prepared to fire her. The district has refused to provide details on what the investigation was about, but an attorney for two administrators said they were told it was about an incident related to Santana High School almost four years ago that prompted a lawsuit by a student’s family. The district had settled with the family.

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