What’s with all the secrecy?

The noble concept that public officials are conducting our business in public and in our best interest is taking a beating in Maine.

Secret #1

The Department of Health and Human Services recently proposed a rule change that severely restricts how infectious disease data is released to the public.

Right now, for instance, if there is a whooping cough outbreak that affects three or more students in a school, DHHS — through the Maine Center for Disease Control — releases a public warning. That warning gives parents an informed opportunity to decide whether to send their child to school or child care, or whether to keep play dates.

Under the proposed change (which is so densely worded it is nearly incomprehensible), release of infectious data would be restricted to population centers of more than 2,000 in order to protect privacy of the sick. 

No school in Maine has a population greater than 1,500, so no more whooping cough outbreak warnings in schools. Or warnings about measles or other serious childhood diseases.

No more warnings about disease outbreaks in nursing homes, community centers, restaurants or other centers where people may live or visit at any one time because the numeric threshold to release information is ridiculously high.

And, without adequate warning, people will walk into settings where diseases have been reported, completely unaware they’re putting themselves at risk.

DHHS is attempting to make this change through rulemaking, circumventing the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee — a beyond-sneaky move.

Secret # 2

Buried in this proposed rule is another change to public access: The CDC would exempt itself from the requirement under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act to provide records in the form, or medium, requested.

Today, for instance, if someone asked for a database on chicken pox outbreaks in Maine over the past 10 years, and requested that data on disc, that’s how it would have to be provided. Under the new rule, the CDC could decide how to provide the data, including printing out hard-to-search paper documents or on some other format that might be useless to the requester.

So, while all other government agencies would be held to FOAA on data format, CDC is writing itself a pass.

And, it’s doing so without going before the Judiciary Committee, the committee of jurisdiction on public access. Again, pretty sneaky, and smacks of an end-run because the rule couldn’t possibly pass the fairness test on public access required of the Legislature.

DHHS doesn’t comment on proposed rules, so there’s been no explanation for the changes.

Public comment on these changes ends Monday, so if you ever want to know about a chicken pox outbreak in your child’s school or are interested in any records in CDC’s possession, speak up. Shout out. Complain about the proposed changes and the improper manner CDC is attempting to implement them.

Send comments to Bridget.Bagley@Maine.gov, or call 287-8016.

Secret #3

Remember the secret meeting of the much-anticipated Blue Ribbon Commission on Maine Education Finance and Achievement held at the Blaine House in April? It was a meeting required, by law, to be held in public.

Instead, just before the breakfast meeting convened it became an invitation-only event, shutting out education stakeholders, lawmakers and the media. And, as we learned this week, the plans for that secret meeting were made in — well — secret.

In 2014, Gov. Paul LePage’s banned state employees from texting after learning top level managers at CDC were using texts to communicate about destroying documents.

According to this week’s MPBN report, LePage’s staff disregarded that ban and planned April’s secret education meeting by text.

Attorney General Janet Mills has since filed a lawsuit against the commission for FOAA violations, but perhaps she might consider amending the case to include LePage’s texting staffers who knew the meeting was illegal beforehand and proceeded nonetheless.

The commission was supposed to hold its second meeting — in public — at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in May but that meeting was canceled at the last minute without explanation and no make-up date has been announced.

This is a commission that is charged with reforming public education funding and improving student performance in Maine, which are critical to the future happiness and productivity of Maine residents. If the commission can’t even properly convene a meeting, why should the public expect that it will complete its contentious — yet important — work?

The most basic question here is what does all this secrecy serve? Certainly not the public.

Collectively these secrets endanger our health, and do nothing to improve fiscal responsibility in our schools or provide better planning for education.

What it does is cripple our faith that government is working for us. In these recent instances, it’s clearly working against us.

No secret there.

jmeyer@sunjournal.com