The Idaho Falls Post Register reports that the school board in Blackfoot agreed in April to a $210,000 contract buyout with the district's former superintendent, then took steps to keep the payments secret, according to documents the district released under a court order Monday. The documents were made public pursuant to an open records lawsuit filed by former teacher Joyce Bingham and the Post Register newspaper. To ensure no one found out about the deal, the board tried to hide the document in Crane's personnel file, the newspaper reported, a move 6^th District Judge David Nye rejected. The board also admitted twice violating the Idaho Open Meeting Law, publicly apologized for the violation and promised to seek training in open meeting law compliance from the Idaho Attorney General’s office or the Bingham County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Click below for a full report from the AP and the Post Register.

An eastern Idaho judge has ordered the Blackfoot School District to release all documents surrounding a separation agreement and a consulting fee by mid-week, the AP reports. Sixth District Judge David Nye issued the order Friday afternoon in response to an open records lawsuit filed by former Blackfoot teacher Joyce Bingham and the Post Register in Idaho Falls. Bingham and the newspaper sued after the district refused to make public a separation agreement between the school board and former Superintendent Scott Crane, as well as details of a contract payout worth more than $105,000.

“Everything about this case smacks of a public agency trying to hide its decision-making from the public,” the judge wrote. “Parties cannot exempt a public record from disclosure and hide it from the public simply by placing it in a personnel file and declaring the personnel file exemption to be applicable to it.” Click below for the full AP report.

Here's a news item from the AP and the Post Register: BLACKFOOT, Idaho (AP) ― An eastern Idaho school district has rejected a request by a former teacher and newspaper to turn over a contract payout agreement signed earlier this year with the former superintendent. The Post-Register and former teacher Joyce Bingham asked Blackfoot School District 55 to release the agreement and documents related to a $105,000 payout made the day after Scott Crane retired. School officials have refused to release the documents, citing personnel protection laws. On Tuesday, the Post Register reported (http://bit.ly/Uc3HOt ) the district once again refused to produce the documents at Crane's request. The newspaper and Bingham are also suing the district in state court to get access to the documents. The lawsuit also claims the district violated open meetings laws in reaching agreement with Crane during a closed-door session. Click below for a full report.

People who access court documents electronically from federal district courts through the PACER system pay 8 cents a page for the privilege, but until this spring, they got the first $10 worth of copies in a year without charge. Now, the Judicial Conference of the United States has approved a change: Users will not be billed unless they’ve racked up more than $10 in PACER charges in a quarter.
    
The federal courts said the impact of the change is “in effect quadrupling the amount of data available without charge.” To set up a PACER account or learn more about the federal courts’ electronic records service, go to www.pacer.gov.

A committee of top real estate professionals was asked to review how Idaho could update its rules for transfers of state endowment lands to match “modern business practices,” and this morning, the panel presented its recommendation to the state’s top elected officials. Among them: Eliminate the requirement for public auctions of endowment lands, and exempt the transactions from the state’s Public Records Act. Idaho Gov. Butch Otter immediately objected.

“We have to make sure that there is total and complete transparency,” the governor declared. “Taking it off public auction inherently reduces the transparency. … I would have a problem with that.” Otter said he’d also oppose exempting state land transactions from the public records act. “Oh yeah,” he said, “and I think every member of the board would.” The state Land Board, which commissioned the report from the committee of professional real estate experts, praised the panel and thanked it for its work. “This board was formed to look at one narrow issue,” said Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. “There are a lot of other factors we have to take into account … such as can we create a system that will preserve transparency.”

The Land Board is made up of the state’s top elected officials and is charged by the state Constitution with getting the maximum long-term financial return from state endowment lands. Board members didn’t raise objections to other proposals from the panel, to amend the Constitution to eliminate acreage limits on transfers of state land to a single individual or company. Those limits, according to the panel’s report, “do not conform to modern business practices.” The panel also proposed allowing sales of state endowment lands “in any reasonable manner” rather than only by public auction; and changing the Admissions Act that made Idaho a state to remove a clause that requires endowment land to be “sold only at public sale,” instead saying they “shall be sold as provided by Idaho law.”

“Our intent was to provide flexibility to the state, then let the state decide through its laws how best to govern these transactions,” said Robert Phillips, president of Hawkins Companies and a commercial real estate developer. George Kirk, a residential real estate developer and member of the panel, told Otter, “Your points are excellent and well-taken. … There are ramifications both corporate, personal and moral that you bring up.”

The group’s report said, “Participants in private sector and commercial business transactions typically expect confidentiality in negotiations and protection of trade secrets of the parties. Likewise, it is recommended that the same protections be afforded to the state Board of Land Commissioners when negotiating leases, purchases, or sales of state endowment lands,” in order to secure maximum financial returns. Otter said there might be a point during negotiations when not everything is released, but it would all have to become public eventually, he said. Though the panel proposed an ambitious timeline, to present its recommendations to the Legislature this year and then get constitutional amendments on the ballot in the 2010 election, Land Board members said they thought that was unrealistic. “It could be worked out this legislative season,” said residential real estate broker Bryant Forrester of Homeland Realty, but state Controller Donna Jones shook her head.