Lehighton board debates RTK software to speed redaction process

An increase in Right To Know requests has put a back-and-forth debate over the purchase of redaction software into the spotlight in Lehighton Area School District.

Following another lengthy, and sometimes heated, conversation during Monday’s board meeting, the district’s governing body agreed to have its information technology and business departments begin looking into the use of redaction software. Any program the district would ultimately purchase would be used to weed out confidential information protected under the RTK law before documents are given to the public.

Monday’s discussion centered around whether to authorize a purchase right away, or do more research before deciding on a specific product.

A motion put on the agenda by director Gail Maholick called for the purchase of a redaction software license and necessary training for the district’s RTK officer.

According to an email attached to the item, the motion also authorized a monthly payment, if necessary to use the software. In her email, Maholick suggested Adobe Acrobat for a $180 initial cost, followed by $14.99 per month.

The motion failed by a 7-2 margin, with only Maholick and fellow director David Bradley Sr. voting in favor of it.

“I think the right way to do it would be to have the IT department and the business office take a look at this, come up with a recommendation and introduce it to the board that way,” board President Larry Stern said before the vote failed.

Bradley disagreed, distributing two performance audits of school districts in central Pennsylvania, in which he said state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale.

“In those audits, he expressly discusses the incredible savings a district would have if we got the software to do even a half or a third of the work that has to be done now to protect the privacy of our students and our staff from the human error of making a mistake,” Bradley said. “It also mentions the extensive milking of finances by a solicitor to review RTK requests that come with not having this software.”

Bradley filed an RTK for what totaled around 7,700 emails from district administrators last year.

In reversing an Office of Open Records decision which granted Bradley access to the unredacted emails, Carbon County Judge Roger Nanovic ruled the district did not have to turn the emails over due to lack of specificity in the request.

During testimony in that case, Lehighton RTK officer Melanie Windhorn estimated it would take three months of her doing nothing but reviewing the emails requested just to determine which pages would need redaction.

“If someone other than someone you know put this on the agenda, you would be all over it with the biggest stick in the world,” Stern told Bradley regarding the motion to purchase software. “All we are asking is for it to be refined so we can have the business office and IT department investigate and come up with a recommendation to implement redaction software for our RTK office.”

After the original motion failed, the board unanimously passed a measure to begin that process.

“You don’t go out and purchase something carte blanche,” Stern said. “Let’s have our departments introduce this to the board so they can see how the software works and how it will be implemented. I have no problem with that.”

According to the motion, the district is hoping to have a presentation or recommendation on the software within 90 days.