Missouri Officials Block Efforts to Track Time Teachers Spend on Union Business

The Washington Free Beacon cites Trey Kovac's study on Missouri union release time:

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., filed public records requests across the Show-Me State regarding union release time only to come up empty. Most school systems did not monitor or disclose union activity that happens during regular business hours.

“Many Missouri government employers did not track release time records and could not provide the cost, amount or activity performed on release time,” the report says.

Trey Kovacs, CEI labor expert and author of the report, also found that many school districts refused to cooperate with his inquiries.

Some officials claimed that the union activities were exempt from transparency laws. Officials from the Kansas City, Mo., school district, one of the largest in the state, declined to fulfill the request after its lawyers ruled that records “related to a specific employee activity are closed under the Open Records Act.”

“Another impediment is that some government officials determined that release time records are closed by law, even while others considered release time records open to the public,” the report says.