Three Black Hills school districts, including Rapid City failed to adhere to South Dakota's open records law during a Rapid City Journal survey conducted this month.

On the heels of South Dakota's new open records legislation which went into effect July 1, the Journal sent two staff interns to six Black Hills school districts to request the name and compensation of their respective high school activities director (see related explainer). The information is considered public record by state law. The interns did not identify themselves as Journal employees, so the request would be treated the same as that of a private citizen.

However, Rapid City, Spearfish and Hot Springs failed to provide the requested information.

y In Rapid City, the human resources department did not provide the information but directed a Journal staff intern to check on the Web for minutes from a meeting to find the salary information. The date provided was inaccurate, however.

y In Spearfish, administration staff declined to release the information, directing Journal staff to purchase the local newspaper in September to find the information.

y In Hot Springs, an administrative employee refused to release the information, citing that it was a little "too personal." The Journal was told they could ask the activities director personally and was given the person's name and phone number.

Sturgis, Belle Fourche and Custer school districts produced the information requested.

Administration and teaching salaries are paid with taxpayer dollars, and therefore openness is a "hugely important check on power," according to Charles Davis, professor at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism.

"We're funded by tax dollars, so it's a public right to know what's being paid in salaries," said Sue Podoll with the Rapid City Teachers Association.

But Rapid City Area Schools did not release the information, instead directing the Journal to the find the meeting minutes from July 2008. However, there was no salary information for the activities director in those minutes.

During a follow-up call, the Journal was again not given the information but redirected to the correct meeting minutes, August 2008, where names and salaries were located within an 84-page document.

Rapid City Superintendent Peter Wharton acknowledged when salary information is requested from their office, citizens are not given the information. They are directed to find it themselves online.

"We're very open about that, they're very accessible," he said.

In Spearfish, officials said the information was not provided because the district was between school years and salaries were not yet official. The request was made for a current name and compensation, without specifying a school year.

"We haven't verified all the administrators' pay yet," said Craig Crosswait, business manager for the Spearfish School District. "That will happen soon because we will need to run that through payroll. That's mainly the reason why we didn't release that, we wanted to get it right." During the follow-up conversation, Crosswait did release the athletic director's name and salary from the previous year.

In Hot Springs, where the Journal was turned away because an administrative employee deemed the information little "too personal," the employee later told the Journal - when contacted by phone - that "I didn't know what was going on." The information was then released over the phone.

Asking for salary information of a state university employee would not have been an issue; it is available online at open.sd.gov in a searchable database, as long as you have the correct first and last name of the employee.

But the state does not provide such a database for its public school employees; instead, it offers links from open.sd.gov to the state's public school districts.

"Ultimately, we did that because if we kept all the data it wouldn't update as often if we had to aggregate all the data to do it," said Neil Fulton, chief of staff for Gov. Mike Rounds.

However, those links redirect readers to a school district's homepage, not employee compensation data.

Josie Kerk can be reached at 394-8417 or e-mail Josephine.kerk@rapidcityjournal.com