Judy Sherry, a former school board member wanted to better understand the Board of Education’s process used for compensation so she requested the salary study results under the Right to Know Act. Under the Act, any documents that detail the expenditure of public monies or any supporting documents that contain salary information and detail public expenditure and are used in making those decisions of spending tax payers’ monies are conceivably subject to public review under the act.
The District, the Board and its Solicitor’s opinion was that these documents were not public , Judy Sherry was told that those items didn't meet the criteria of the state's Right to Know law.
Judy Sherry sued the district under the Act to obtain what she believed to be public property. Her counsel (and sons) Daniel Sherry Jr. and Parker Sherry plead the case in Delaware County Common Pleas Court. After many months, Judge Robert C. Wright produced a 30-page opinion. In the opinion, Wright determined the salary study, commissioned by the school board at a cost of $10,400, and an "in-house" document containing contract information from other districts clearly met the definition of a public document. "The idea of being stingy when it comes to recognizing a citizen's rights is repugnant to our system of government," he wrote. "Indeed, it turns a right into a privilege, which may be granted or denied at the whim of those in positions of power." He also ordered the district to pay Sherry's legal fees and court costs, which totaled nearly $30,000.
District officials say the decision will “chill their ability to prepare for labor negotiations in the future.” The asked Judge Wright to reconsider, as they plan to appeal. John McMeekin II stated that "It's a shame that we have devolved in Radnor to citizens putting their own agendas in front of that of the students, This is money that won't go to students."
Radnor School District administration and Board of Education membership decided to withhold the information despite numerous requests and despite it fitting the definition of a public document. They are responsible for costing taxpayers $60,000 to withhold documents that the public had a right to see. Under the Right to Know Act, salary information of employees of public school systems, are public records. In Pennsylvania, a court held that salary records of individual community college employees are public records since they are accounts dealing with the disbursement of public funds. In this case, absent of a court decision, the salary survey fit the criteria of public records because it detailed public employee salaries. The point of the Right to Know Act in Pennsylvania is that tax paying citizens have the right to know how their school board and municipal government spend their money and make decisions about spending that money.
