We will probably never know the real reason that Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school authorities agreed to pay Tania Chance, a human resources administrator, $254,814 to leave her job a couple of months ago. The super, Randy Clegg, isn't talking. And Chance, for all we know, has already unlisted her number and opened a sandals and sunglasses boutique on St. Maarten.

The local newspapers tried to get to the bottom of it. The Pioneer Press was in there hectoring and cajoling and arguing that Burnsville school officials owed the public, by law, an explanation. There was a leaked copy of the separation agreement with nine lines blacked out.

What about those nine lines, Burnsville school officials?

Well, in an artful playacting of trying to be helpful, the Burnsville school authorities sought an opinion on their redacting. This required Burnsville to ask the Information Policy Analysis Division (IPAD) of the Minnesota Department of Administration whether it did the right thing in blacking out nine lines of the agreement the district had with Chance.

From the Burnsville district: "In good faith and based on legal advice the school district redacted information from the agreement that it believed was private data. The district then voluntarily requested an opinion from the commissioner."

Can you believe that? After the fact, they wanted to be credited as an example of virtue because they "voluntarily" requested an opinion.

Why didn't they do that in the first place?

It gets worse. You have a public agency, the school, asking another public agency, IPAD, to give them a ruling on their behavior.


It turns out that the fellow in charge of such things, Spencer Cronk, in a finding released Monday, April 23, said, essentially: "You should not have redacted those lines. They contained information offering specific reasons for the agreement and therefore are public."

Well, two things. The redacted lines didn't really offer very much information at all. And two, Cronk's opinion is nonbinding. If they didn't want to, Burnsville didn't have to take any action on Cronk's decision, but they did, releasing the agreement, which had been leaked, and is so basically devoid of information it isn't of any use to the taxpayer, anyway.

The separation agreement is about this informative: Tania Chance agreed to take a quarter of a million dollars to leave and Burnsville agreed to give her a quarter of a million dollars to leave.

What's the problem, public? We told you all we have to tell you.

New legislation is the only remedy to undo decades of lawmaking that have granted too many public employees the kinds of privacy protections that could never be realized in the private sector. Whether it's a police chief who is paid off to leave, or a school super, or a human resources director, the taxpayers, in order to better husband their own money, deserve to be told what is going on.

It's the warren of loopholes and redundant public agencies that need to be cleaned up. The law is already there, but we are seeing how easily, in this case, Burnsville got around the law. Strip away that balderdash and talk straight!

Rep. Pam Myhra, R-Burnsville, has authored a new bill intending to open up the transparency regarding severance payments and the conduct of government officials. Her bill cleared the House 131-0. Sen. Dan Hall, R-Burnsville, carried the bill in the Senate but already has had to meet with Education Minnesota, the teachers union, because they are worried that medical information (huh?) or information about teachers who raise concerns about supervisors might be unintentionally disclosed.

Hall said he would come up with a slight language change, that he would do what he had to do to get the governor to sign such a bill, the governor being as indebted as he is to the likes of Education Minnesota.
