The Importance of Having Persistence: Chetly Zarko's Fight for Educational Transparency
Should taxpayers know what public employees are doing with their money? Chetly Zarko, a Michigan resident and government transparency specialist, thinks it's a pretty obvious answer--"Yes." But when Zarko began requesting public records from the local teachers' union, he found out that things aren't always so simple. The Michigan Education Association, it turns out, likes to keep certain things under wraps--and now he's embroiled in a battle that's putting government union transparency into the spotlight.
Zarko's entry into an ongoing controversy over whether public documents are, well, actually public began with some simple e-mail alerts. "I maintain a series of Google Alerts on various issues that I'm interested in," says Zarko. "I'm interested in taxpayer stuff because it's the key issue during the state's current budget crisis, but I'm interested primarily in education. My Google Alerts look for mentions of millage rates, collective bargaining disputes-any controversial thing that affects public education."
One day, he noticed a pattern. "Mentions of the Howell School System were everywhere in the alerts, so I dug deeper," says Zarko. He discovered that the Howell system had recently declared itself the policyholder for its employees' health insurance plan-meaning that it could now bid with a rival insurance company to the MEA union's own insurance resale corporation.
The MEA, according to Zarko, did not relish the prospect of losing the Howell School System as a customer. "The MEA makes $400,000,000 in profit every year by selling health insurance plans to Michigan school districts, so naturally its leaders were upset by the Howell system's moves toward choosing another provider," says Zarko.
Some of these leaders' names appeared frequently in Zarko's news searches, making him wonder just how involved they were in the struggle over health insurance. "What I look for is whether administrators are using public resources to lobby government," says Zarko.
When Zarko issued a Freedom of Information request in late March, asking to see certain school administrator's e-mails, he got the e-mails, along with an unpleasant surprise: the MEA began throwing up roadblocks. "The MEA had been in touch with the school district, telling them that their e-mail wasn't a public record," says Zarko. "But the school district did not agree with the MEA's position, and released a couple of hundred e-mails to me. Three of those e-mail chains dealt with taxpayer-funded use of resources, which made me wonder what it is that I hadn't seen."
In the e-mails he obtained, Zarko found more than a discussion over health insurance. "One chain discussed how teachers could distribute government lobbying flyers at an upcoming meeting of parents and teachers," says Zarko. "Another discussed how teachers would send postcards home with students, encouraging their parents to lobby government on the union's behalf. I also found many, many e-mails in which teachers expressed dissent against what union leaders proposed, dissent for which they were swiftly chastised."
After sifting through and analyzing those couple hundred e-mails, Zarko started publishing them to his website. "When you use taxpayer resources to attempt to change the outcome of an election or bargaining process, that's illegal and improper," says Zarko. He then sent out a press release summarizing the information to the Howell system's press list.
The MEA, meanwhile, was less than pleased: they took the issue to court. "After the publicity that I gave to the information, the MEA decided to file a reverse FOIA, which is when a third party tries to stop a government agency from releasing records," says Zarko. "In this case, the records were the additional e-mails that I had requested."
A few press releases, radio interviews, and even a Detroit News editorial later, Zarko waits as legal proceedings continue to judge whether e-mails composed on public property are indeed public records. Even though the Howell School System eventually kept the MEA's company as its health insurance provider, the union continues to claim that releasing the additional requested documents will cripple its collective bargaining capability, which, now in Howell, at least, is a moot point.
Coming from the perspective of the current legal fight, Zarko has tips for others who seek to keep tabs on their government. "The key thing with FOIA is persistence. Persist through flack, persist through criticism. If you're exposing something bad, you're going to have to deal with opposition," says Zarko.
He also recommends becoming very familiar with the relevant open records laws. "Many times, bureaucrats say that it's going to cost thousands and thousands of dollars to complete the request, but just read the law a bit and throw it right back at the detractors. The more specific you can be about what you want to see, the better."
Zarko also advises a multi-pronged approach: "If you can't get it one way, try to get it another way. Try different public bodies. If one turns you down, you might be able to get the exact same information from another that has access to it."
Zarko's last tip is not to be put off track by people who prefer secrecy over openness. "One of the MEA's objections is that I have an ideological bent against unions. That's not true. I do have an ideological bent against abuse of taxpayer funds, plain and simple."
You may read more about Zarko's ongoing battle with the MEA on his blog "Power, Politics and Money" and his website chetlyzarko.com.
