(The Center Square) – A case before the Washington State Supreme Court could require earlier release of public records related to state collective bargaining agreement negotiations.
In October 2022, a public records request was made to the state Office of Financial Management for initial contract proposals with public sector unions; negotiations between the state and the unions are not open to the public. The records request was denied on the basis that the agreements had not been finalized and thus were exempt under a state provision known as deliberate process exemption.
The lawsuit filed by the Citizen Action Defense Fund has sought to have the records request denial overturned. After a trial court ruled in favor of CADF, the Court of Appeals reversed the decision and sided with OFM, represented by the State Attorney General’s Office.
The central point of contention between the two entities is whether or not the exemption clause should apply beyond the time when OFM has signed a CBA agreement. Once the agreements are signed, they then require approval from the OFM director as “financially feasible,” then sent to the state Legislature for approval. Afterwards, the governor can then decide to sign the CBAs into law or veto them.
CADF Executive Director Jackson Maynard told the state high court at an oral argument that the exemption is “time limited” and that the records requested were not pre-decisional because the CBA had been signed and OFM’s role in the process had ended.
“The real issue that we have … is they conflate OFM as an agency making a decision as a part of a process with the state’s collective bargaining,” he said. “Our request was not to the state. Our request was to an agency, which is exactly what the public records act requires and allows us to do. The legislature is a different agency making a different decision.”
However, OFM Counsel Alicia Young argued that the decision-making process had not ended and does not end until the governor signs the CBAs.
“The deliberate process was well underway,” she said. “The decision-making process involves the Legislature. Legislature has set up a system where the Legislature gets to decide whether the collective bargaining agreement is ultimately adopted by the state.”
Yet, Chief Justice Debra L. Stephens noted that CADF “makes a fair point about how we look at agency. It’s their deliberate process, not a global process.”
Young responded that the state CBA process “is just a very unique system” that sets it a part from other types of decision-making processes conducted by state agencies.
She added that the release of records such as initial contract proposals prior to the CBA’s ultimate approval “chills and interferes with the collective bargaining process. Also [there’s] a risk that there will be less candor and less free thinking.”
