In 2004, the city of Springfield claimed to be making strides in hiring more minority employees; however, it refused to provide the documentation to back up the claim, even though it was submitted to a governmental agency.

When the city did finally release the reports, they were heavily redacted — in spite of a state attorney general’s directive that the reports are considered public record. I wrote a series of stories about the issue and attempts to obtain the documents through FOIA.

City declines to reveal gender, racial data / County judge to decide if reasoning is right
Sept. 3, 2004

The city of Springfield has declined to make public data it compiles every other year for the federal government about the gender and racial makeup of the city workforce, saying it amounts to confidential personnel information.

It will be up to a Sangamon County judge to decide if that reasoning is right.

City attorney Jenifer Johnson and Mayor Tim Davlin refused to disclose the data, which was requested Aug. 23 by the legal assistant to Benton attorney Courtney Cox, who represents black police officers suing the city for racial discrimination.

The assistant, Judy Carson, filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking “copies of all documents in the possession of the City of Springfield which reflect the race, gender and/or national origin of current and/or past employees … including all EEO reports, Labor Force Analysis and EEO Utilization Analysis for each period for which such records have been kept.”

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission oversees a variety of employer surveys. Cities with more than 100 employees are required to submit on odd numbered years information about workforce composition, including a breakout of gender, race and ethnicity.

The data is plugged into each of several occupational categories, including officials and administrators, professionals, technicians, protective service, paraprofessional, administrative support, skilled/craft and service/maintenance. Every employee has to be counted in one of those categories. The EEOC then compiles that information into different reports that it distributes.

Johnson declined Carson’s request on Aug. 25, citing 5ILCS140/7(1)(b)(ii) of the state FOIA regulations. That particular section exempts “personnel files and personal information maintained with respect to employees, appointees or elected officials of any public body or applicants for those positions.”

Carson appealed the denial to Davlin a day later. The FOIA indicates appeals must be submitted to the head of the public body that denied the request – in this case, the mayor.

Davlin sent a letter to Carson Wednesday, denying the appeal.

“Your request was denied because it pertained to personnel information with respect to current or past employees of the city. A public body has the right to deny a FOIA request for this reason, and it appears the statute was properly followed in denying your request,” the letter reads.

Cox has responded by filing suit in Sangamon County Circuit Court, which is the next step in the appeals process. The suit asks for the city to supply the documents requested, as well as reimbursement for costs and attorney’s fees.

Johnson was unavailable for comment Thursday. City spokesman Ernie Slottag, contacted at home Thursday evening, explained the reasoning behind declining to release the data.

“The information that makes up the EEO reports comes from personnel records, and because the personnel records are confidential and exempt, our legal counsel has determined that reports generated from these exempt records are also exempt,” he said, adding that he believes there is case law supporting the city.

Cox said he would not have filed the suit if he didn’t feel the data was public information.

“Clearly, if I was asking for a person’s private personnel records, those would definitely be excluded. These are not personnel records by any stretch of the imagination. They are documents filed with the federal government, and that other communities release without any question,” he said.

Jennifer Kaplan, an EEOC spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said the commission does not release cities’ reports. Whether a municipality is required to make its reports public would be up to local sunshine laws, she said.

Cox apparently is not the only one seeking the data. Members of the mayor’s Race Relations Task Force had requested it previously and also were denied.

However, at a special meeting Thursday, the city did provide the information to the task force. Reporters from The State Journal-Register and the Illinois Times, as well as a citizen attending the meeting, were asked to leave the room so the task force could be given the information.

The panel cited discussion of personnel matters in closing the meeting to the public, but two of its members expressed concern about how the matter was being handled.

“I’m intrigued because for years now we have discussed numbers relative to the police and fire departments. If those are OK, then why are the other numbers not?” asked task force member Dan Stout.

Another member, Bob Blackwell, indicated the group would try not to close the meeting any longer than necessary “because we are not real comfortable with having to ask you all to leave.”
City will release data on work force / Race, gender figures have been withheld
Sept. 16, 2004

Previously withheld data about the race and gender makeup of Springfield’s city work force will be released by the end of the week, city attorney Jenifer Johnson said Wednesday.

The city is releasing the information compiled for the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at the direction of aldermen, not because of pressure from the news media or a lawsuit filed by an attorney who represents Springfield’s black police officers, she added.

Assistant Illinois attorney general Terry Mutchler contacted Johnson on Wednesday to say the agency considers the EEOC data public record and to discuss a northern Illinois appellate court ruling Johnson has cited in declining to release it.

Johnson has argued that making the information public could violate some employees’ right to privacy.

According to a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, Mutchler sent the city a letter saying that the EEOC filings should be released and noting that the city had agreed to do that. The letter was faxed and mailed to the city Wednesday.

The city, however, will release the data in a repackaged format; an employee breakdown by job category will not be included so as not to reveal any personal information. Johnson said she will create a form that contains the data, which is based on the city’s most recent EEOC filing.

She said the form she will release is consistent with what the city’s position has been all along. She said she and Mutchler agreed that what the city intends to release is OK.

“That’s all along why the city has objected to releasing the document in whole, because there is personally identifiable information. I understand no one has asked for names – the document doesn’t have names – but based on the breakdown by job category, it’s easy to personally identify employees,” Johnson said, adding that she is comfortable with the legal advice she and her assistants have rendered on the issue.

“The city certainly has no objection to releasing the general statistical information. Our concern all along has been protecting the privacy of our employees, which the case law indicates we should do.”

Johnson and Mayor Tim Davlin have declined to release the actual EEOC filing, saying it reveals personal information about city employees, particularly those who work in one-person offices.

Melissa Merz, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, confirmed Wednesday that the agency considers release of the EEOC report a matter of public information.

“It is our view that the information being sought in this instance is public record. The FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request sought gender and racial statistics that the city is required to keep. It is not an invasion of personal privacy to release that statistical information,” she said.

“It could be an invasion of personal privacy to release personal identifiers, such as name and race together; however, the report is public record, and the statistical information should be released.”

The State Journal-Register, after learning earlier this month that city officials did not intend to release the data, contacted the attorney general’s office to find out whether the EEOC filing is considered public information. The newspaper has filed a Freedom of Information request for the data.

A legal assistant to Courtney Cox, the southern Illinois attorney who is representing a group of black police officers who are suing the city for racial discrimination, also asked for the information in a FOI request.

Johnson denied the request. It was appealed to Davlin, who also denied it. Cox then filed suit in Sangamon County Circuit Court. The case is pending.

Cox could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening.

Johnson, in declining to release the data, cited a 1990 ruling, known as CBS v. Cecil Partee. The ruling noted that providing the names and races together of governmental employees could constitute an invasion of privacy. CBS had sought information including names and races of all Cook County assistant state’s attorneys, as well as names, positions, dates of hire and salaries for a host of other employees.

The ruling does not preclude municipalities from releasing EEOC filings, only race and names together. In some cases, officials legally can release the forms and black out any sensitive information.

At the Sept. 7 Springfield City Council meeting, aldermen asked that the information be released.

The attorney general oversees enforcement of the state’s Freedom of Information Act, which requires certain types of public records be accessible to provide “full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts and policies of those representing them.”

The act allows for some exemptions, such as personnel files, personal information, documents revealing the identity of people who file complaints, information that deprives a person of a fair trial or impartial hearing and records that could endanger the safety of police officers.
Hiring report to be heavily edited / State AG’s office tells city it’s all public information
Sept. 17, 2004

The city of Springfield plans to release two documents today regarding the race and gender makeup of its work force – a heavily edited copy of its most recent EEOC report and a summary of its contents.

An attorney who requested the data isn’t satisfied, though, saying he’d rather see the entire report “than what they want to create to pass out.”

Releasing the 33-page federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filing, even with much of the information blacked out, marks the second change in two days in the city’s position that it would not make the report public. Officials have said it contains confidential personnel information.

The Illinois attorney general’s office, which oversees enforcement of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, maintains the document is public information and urged the city to release it, according to a letter assistant attorney general Terry Mutchler sent the city on Wednesday.

The report includes a breakdown of the city’s work force by job category, salary range, race and gender. It contains only aggregate data, not employees’ names or other identifiers.

However, city attorney Jenifer Johnson said Thursday that releasing the complete EEOC report would allow someone to cross-reference it with other information the city makes public and potentially identify the race of some employees. According to the Freedom of Information Act, the names, positions, salaries and dates of hire of governmental employees are public information.

Allowing the public to see the structure of the document will enable people to understand the specific nature of the information the city is required to provide, as well as why it could potentially violate employees’ privacy, Johnson said.

She created a summary of the race and gender information contained in the report, and that will accompany the EEOC filing when it is released today. The summary will not include an employee breakdown by job category.

“The fact that this (EEOC) document doesn’t have names specifically attached to it to me is really irrelevant considering how substantially these categories are broken down, because anyone who cared would be able to match that up in many, many cases,” Johnson said.

State law does not require the city to create a summary of the information, but Johnson said she did it to satisfy questions about the race and gender makeup of the city’s work force. Aldermen at the Sept. 7 city council meeting requested that such a summary be prepared.

The EEOC information became an issue recently after Johnson and Mayor Tim Davlin declined to release it to the attorney representing Springfield’s black police officers in a discrimination lawsuit against the city.

The attorney, Courtney Cox, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the documents, but Johnson and Davlin rejected it.

Cox has since filed suit against the city, and that case is pending. The State Journal-Register also has filed a FOI request for the information.

Johnson cited a 1990 Illinois appellate court case as support for her decision to deny release of the EEOC reports. In that case, known as CBS v. Cecil Partee, the court said that providing the names and races together of governmental employees could constitute an invasion of privacy. CBS had sought information, including names and races of all Cook County assistant state’s attorneys, as well as names, positions, dates of hire and salaries for a host of other employees.

However, the ruling indicates the state’s attorney’s office did release its EEOC filings to CBS, and the court took no exception to that.

Neither Cox nor the newspaper has asked the city to reveal names of city employees together with their races.

The State Journal-Register, after learning earlier this month that city officials did not intend to release the data, asked the attorney general’s office whether the EEOC filing is public information.

Mutchler’s letter to the city says that “aggregate numbers without containing personal identifying information for each employee generally would not constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Moreover, a public body is required under the Act to separate the exempt from the non-exempt information and disclose the non-exempt information, in this case, names, if they are specifically coupled with race identifiers.”

The letter also indicates the Cook County case is not applicable in this situation.

Mutchler said Johnson called her Thursday to ask for additional advice regarding whether the original EEOC document needed to be provided with the summary. Johnson later sent Mutchler a letter indicating the city’s 2003 EEOC document contains personally identifying information and that under her reading of the Cook County case, the information is exempt from disclosure. It also says the city will release the report after redacting all identifying information, “which unfortunately is almost the entire document.”

Davlin has said he feared that an employee might sue the city for releasing the report and that he hoped someone would take the city to court so a judge could say definitively whether the filings should be made public.

Cox said Thursday that he believes the city is still hiding information.

“Instead of turning (the EEOC report) over, now they want to create their own forms,” he said. “I think it’s more reliable to see what they’ve turned in and told the federal government than what they want to create to pass out. I want to look at what they’re going to present, but I doubt it will persuade me not to pursue the Freedom of Information suit to obtain the actual original documents.”

Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards, who has pushed for the report’s release, said he, too, is disappointed with the Davlin administration.

“They said we were going to do things different and we were going to be open and we were going to be this and we were going to be that. It looks like the same old deal to me,” he said. “The people of the community have the right to know what their government is doing. These behind-closed-doors, backroom dealings – no wonder we’re getting sued all the time.”

7.1% minorities in city jobs / Compared with 20% of Springfield’s population

Sept. 18, 2004

Minorities are underrepresented in the city of Springfield’s work force, according to data released Friday.

Non-whites make up 7.1 percent of the overall work force, while they account for about 20 percent of Springfield’s population, according to 2000 Census figures.

The head of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called the numbers “an embarrassment,” while the chairman of the mayor’s own race relations task force criticized the city for its lack of openness in the matter.

After initially refusing to release the information, the city provided The State Journal-Register with a summary of its 2003 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEO-4 filing, along with a heavily edited copy of the actual report.

The newspaper asked for the data in a Freedom of Information Act request on Sept. 7, the same day aldermen requested that it be made public.

The summary, put together by city attorney Jenifer Johnson, is a spreadsheet of repackaged information from the report. It includes EEOC “job functions” but gives no indication of the departments employees work in; the number of employees in each job function; and a breakout of the number of white men and women, black men and women and men and women from “other” ethnic groups who work in each job function.

The 33-page EEOC report, which the city must file every other year, was based on employees of the city between July 2002 and June 2003. Mayor Tim Davlin took office in April 2003.

Johnson said she blacked out any information on the report she believed would allow the public to identify individual employees. In refusing to release the entire contents, city officials said doing so could violate workers’ right to privacy, because anyone who viewed it might be able to determine a particular employee’s race.

But not only does the EEOC filing not include names for the city’s 1,586 employees, there is no explanation of the racial categories jobs into which jobs are slotted. The report identifies workers by general “job categories” – administration, professionals, technicians, protective services, paraprofessional, administrative support, skilled craft and service/maintenance. It includes eight salary ranges within each category and then lists the number of men or women in racial categories identified only as “B” through “K.”

Minorities are concentrated in relatively few jobs, based on the city’s data. The highest percentage, 30.9, work in “public welfare” jobs.

City officials, contacted through a spokeswoman late Friday afternoon, just after the report was released, refused to provide further explanation of what is considered a “public welfare” job, saying that could violate employees’ privacy. The city has no public welfare department.

The city’s data shows 15.4 percent of minorities work in “financial administration” positions, 14.3 work in “other” jobs, and 11.5 work in jobs pertaining to “streets and highways.”

Baker Siddiquee, chairman of the Mayor’s Task Force on Race Relations, said the committee has been asking the city for the EEOC data for about six months. At the group’s Sept. 2 meeting, they were allowed to view a summary of the data, broken down by department, but were not allowed to keep it, make notes or copy it.

He said the group has become increasingly frustrated by the city’s reluctance to share the information. Members sought the data so they could begin talking to various departments with good minority-hire numbers to find out what they are doing to diversify and share that information with other departments.

“Our group openly expressed they are not happy (with the lack of information from the city),” Siddiquee said. “I think that for us, we’re puzzled because we’re already discussing the low representation in two departments – police and fire – so what difference does it make if there are two or three other departments on the same list?…

“Openness is critical. If we are to have any impact as the mayor’s task force, the first thing is information and openness. We are advisory to the mayor. If we cannot reach the administration and provide our advice, then what is the role of this so-called task force?”

Rudy Davenport, president of the Springfield branch of the NAACP, described the city’s minority employment numbers as “dismal.”

“The black total is only 6.8 percent in the entire city (work force). Actually, we are at about 13 percent of the population, so you can see the city really hasn’t made a great deal of progress. They haven’t made any, really,” said Davenport, who noted that he and the NAACP have never had access to racial and gender data for all city employees.

“Certainly, I can see why they would not want it released. It’s an embarrassment to the city. It’s an embarrassment that we allow things to get to the state where this is reflected as such. It really does not bode well, I would think, for the city as far as being the land of Lincoln and the image we want to project.”

Davenport said NAACP members have discussed the city’s reluctance to release the data and believe it reflects poorly on the administration, especially once the Illinois attorney general’s office confirmed the data could be released. He said members became suspicious of the city’s motives.

Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards said the numbers indicate the city has too few minority employees. He asked why other city departments have not been pressed to hire minorities, while a great deal of emphasis has been placed on police and fire department hiring.

“All these politicians and all these people who’ve been pushing the numbers on the police and fire department, I think they’ve got a lot to explain because all these exempt jobs and all these other jobs that are non-testing positions haven’t been filled with minorities and women,” he said.

“I’ve always said our (fire) department should reflect he makeup of our community. I think that should hold true for all departments at the city.”

According to the city’s summary, the “fire” job function – presumably firefighters – has the least number of minorities at 2.2 percent.

Courtney Cox, the attorney representing several black police officers in a discrimination lawsuit against the city, sought the EEOC data in a FOIA request that was rejected by the city. He has since filed suit for the information. He said Thursday he didn’t believe the city’s summary would be adequate for his purposes and said he would rather see the entire unedited EEOC report “than what they want to create to pass out.”

The Illinois attorney general’s office, which oversees enforcement of the state FOI Act, maintains the EEOC filings are public information and urged the city to release them, according to a letter assistant attorney general Terry Mutchler sent the city earlier this week.

Davlin has said he fears an employee might sue the city for releasing the report and that he hopes someone will take the city to court so a judge can rule whether the filings should be made public.

In a statement the city released Friday afternoon, Johnson reiterated the data was being released only because aldermen requested it.

“This in no way changes our position that requests for a specific breakdown of positions not be allowed under FOIA,” she said. “We stand by our earlier determination and are anxiously awaiting further clarification from the courts.”

Davlin mum on number of minority hires / Mayor fears threat of lawsuit
Sept. 22, 2004

Springfield Mayor Tim Davlin was unable to say how many minorities he’s hired since taking office last year, but he believes his numbers are considerably higher than those of previous administrations.

Davlin, following Tuesday’s Springfield City Council meeting, indicated he was reluctant to put in writing how many non-whites he has hired out of fear of being sued.

“That’s my only concern,” he said, “not to please the press, but to make sure the city of Springfield does not have a lawsuit where we pay out a monetary claim to anyone, because we do not have the money.”

The Davlin administration on Friday – after being prodded by the press, aldermen and others – released a summary that shows the city has a 7.1 percent minority hire rate. The summary was based on information compiled for a mandatory federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report the city filed in 2003.

Davlin said the minority hire numbers should be compared to the number of non-whites in Springfield’s work force, not the city’s minority population as a whole.

City officials and local leaders in the past have talked about having the city government’s work force reflect the makeup of the community, which is 20 percent minorities, according to 2000 Census data.

Davlin instead cited a 2004 report compiled by the Illinois Department of Labor that shows Springfield’s “total civilian work force” in 2002 included 7,809 minorities. That’s 7.2 percent of the available labor force, according to the report.

He said comparing the city’s minority hire numbers to the labor report data is more appropriate than comparing the numbers to the city’s total minority population.

“To say that our goal is 20 percent because that’s the population, that would far exceed anything that the labor statistics would ever say is possible,” he said, adding that removing police and fire positions from the equation shows the city has an 8.6 percent minority hire rate.

The mayor said he met Monday with representatives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to make sure “they understood the numbers and make sure that we know how to compare things.”

“It just shows that when you release raw numbers, it doesn’t mean anything. You’ve got to be able to understand what those numbers are,” he said.

The 33-page EEOC report, which the city must file every other year, was based on employees of the city between July 2002 and June 2003. Davlin took office in April 2003.

He said his administration is working hard to recruit more minorities to work for the city.

“I think we’re doing things that have never been done previously. We’re committing police officers to be full-time recruiters, taking someone off the streets where we now have to make up for that in other ways,” he said. “The recruiting we’re doing at the fire department and everything we’ve done in conjunction with the NAACP and the Urban League … I think it’s important to note that we’re doing everything we possibly can and things that have never been done in previous administrations.”

Davlin also deflected the notion that some community members believe his administration has something to hide, given its reluctance to release the minority data.

“So far, to date, I’ve never had one person complain to me that we’re trying to hide anything. I think what I hear are positive things, that what I’m trying to do is protect the city of Springfield from future lawsuits,” he said. “My job is to protect the city of Springfield, and sometimes you’ve just got to take a little heat in doing that.”

Davlin also took a swipe at Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards, who has criticized him for not hiring enough minorities. Davlin called Edwards’ statements “hypocritical,” saying he hired 20 white male firefighters during his tenure as fire chief between March 2001 and October 2002.

“He’s the one who’s actually responsible for these low numbers … and never doing anything at all, never putting a firefighter out recruiting and putting resources in a different area. Yet he’s the hypocrite saying we’re doing such a bad thing,” Davlin said.

“I inherited those numbers under this administration. But how hypocritical can you be when the numbers are his responsibility?”

Edwards said he was the first fire chief to put together a recruitment team made up of minorities, women and white firefighters and that he put the current fire department recruiter, Mark Dyment, in that position. He said he took several other steps to recruit minority firefighter candidates to the department, and noted that the fire chief does not hire firefighters, it’s human resources and the mayor who do.

“I think, as usual, the mayor’s talking out of one side of his mouth politically and doesn’t know what he’s talking about out the other side of his mouth,” Edwards said.

“If the mayor really wants to talk about his record, let’s talk about who he has hired and who he has let go. If you just look at the small cadre of people he’s hired, you’ll find a great disparity,”

In other business Tuesday, aldermen approved spending $2,000 for the public health department to rent the Prairie Capital Convention Center on Oct. 23 for a “drive-through flu shot clinic.”

Anyone seeking a flu vaccination will be able to drive through the center and receive a shot without leaving their vehicle. The clinic will take place between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., and health department officials expect to give out at least 500 vaccinations. Health department director Ray Cooke said he has never heard of another public health department conducting such a clinic.

The council also OK’d several appointments to the city’s Historic Sites Commission. Davlin reappointed Nancy Evans, Patricia Doyle and Ron Ladley to the commission, along with new appointees Stephen D. Myers, Robert J. Barker and Thomas J. Cullen.