Larry Murray’s unending search for financial misbehavior
Larry Murray, the self-described “Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Activist” from the Middle Keys, won’t stop asking the Monroe County School District for more documents.
The former member of the district’s independent audit and finance committee has made dozens of requests for documents—not just a single page at a time; a handful of which were for batches of documents. He has sued the School District for not responding to two document requests and unsuccessfully sued the district in court to recover the costs of suing the district.
The audit and finance committee, created after the School Board’s baptism by fire during the financial scandals of 2008-2010, was once Murray’s platform for requesting records and drilling into how the district makes financial decisions. When Murray left the committee a couple of years ago, he was far from finished looking into the district.
Nor is he yet.
“I have no ‘mission’ with regard to my public records requests,” Murray said Saturday. “Information comes to my attention from time to time, sometimes from citizens asking my assistance, and I pursue it.”
Murray leaves no stone unturned. He has requested an accounting of the money raised by the school district during the annual Seven Mile Bridge Run, asked for records that indicate why an administrator was given a $10,000 raise; asked for a review of how much the district charges for public records; asked for records that described how former School Board member Steve Pribramsky would become the chief forensic auditor of the HOB project. The proposal to hire Pribramsky cane from School Board member Ed Davidson; a contract was drafted by Dirk Smits but nothing came of it, Murray said.
He also writes “missives”–Murray’s word — on such subjects as how the district plans to provide online courses to students without computers.
According to School Board member John Dick, the district tries to do its best to comply with public records requests, but keeping up with Murray’s many requests has been difficult.
“It’s the law, we have to provide those records to anyone who asks for them,” Dick said this week. “He has more than 40 requests in to date, has taken the district to court and lost, then taken us to court to recoup his money, and lost that case.”
“I will have filed 38 public records requests with number 38 being filed on Monday, April 14. Those 38 requests were filed over a three-year period or approximately one per month,” Murray said. The district has complied with all but three, he said.
The number of requests should not be a burden to the district, Murray said. He also has battled Porter over what the district has charged him for documents.
“Do I think that the number of requests are too much for staff to handle? Certainly not!! Many of my requests are for one page or two pages,” he said. “Nothing that I have requested has required research. Everything that I have requested is available in electronic format and do not require costs for copying and don’t contain information that need redacting.”
Murray can be grating to those who don’t like him but he said he hasn’t been disrespectful of political opponents, such as those he faced in his primary race for the School Board in 2012. He gained 1,067 votes, or 7.7 percent of the ballots cast in the primary.
“While I may have spoken with disdain about the district and the board, I believe that I spoke respectfully about all of my opponents and I believe that they would confirm that if you were to ask them,” Murray said.
Murray did get the records that were the subject of his lawsuit against the district last fall. Murray received the records before the court hearing, making his case moot. Judge David Audlin recently rejected Murray’s request that the district reimburse him $500 for court costs. That’s because Murray had waited too long to file paperwork with the court.
“Part of the reason that I delayed appealing was that I attempted to settle with the District out of court,” he explaihned. “I was seeking $500 in reimbursement for filing fees and it was going to cost the District $2,000 to defend my appeal. The District rejected my offer on Nov/ 19.”
Murray said he knows that he has irritated Superintendant Mark Porter and School Board members with his records requests.
“[Board member] Andy Griffiths told me later that my appeal was rejected so as to teach me and others a lesson not to sue the school district. He said that the district could not bear a headline that read: ‘Murray Beats School District'”.
Griffiths denies telling Murray that.
“People hear something and make it sound the way they want it to sound,” Griffiths told Konk Life.
Porter and board member Rob Smith-Martin did not respond to phone calls from KonkLife asking for comment.
Murray also copies reporters in the emails he sends the School Board as well as emails he sends Superintendent Porter, who has been the brunt of many of Murray’s broadsides. Here is a sample from a November email about his upcoming First Amendment Rally in Key West.
“The School District stands alone in Monroe County in its hostility toward public records requests,” he wrote in the email. “County government, the City of Key West and even the Mosquito Control Commission all place a premium on promptly responding to public records requests and do so while rarely, if ever, charging for the service. Unlike the School District, other governmental entities value transparency and being responsive to the citizenry.”
Though the district already releases records based on state sunshine laws, Porter put together a Monroe County schools policy for transferring paper, electronic, and video records to the public. Though it’s been before the School Board for at least two months and discussed in work sessions, it has yet to pass, Dick said.
The board is debating whether they will have a records manager who also acts as a public information officer, or a public information officer first, with records management as a secondary task. Another detail: How much should the district charge members of the public for finding the requested documents, for copying the documents, and if necessary, redacting the names of minor students, Social Security numbers, and other protected information? Murray–who has criticized the district for charging him for documents based on the time it takes a highly paid administrator to process the documents for him–argues that most documents are in electronic format and do not require much more than forwarding the documents to him via email.
“We’ll get it passed,” Dick of the proposed public records rules. Dick had a hard time getting documents he requested while a School Board member several years ago.
In the meantime, Murray is not slowing down. His latest request is for documents that show who received the proceeds from last year’s Seven Mile Bridge Run. He has heard some of it goes to Marathon High School’s track team.
“My request is for a copy of the 2013 income statement(s) for all monies received in the Monroe County School District, regardless of school or entity, from revenue produced by the annual Seven Mile Bridge Run and distributed by the Marathon Runners Club and others.”
When asked whether he knows something is amiss with the Bridge Run money, Murray responded, “I really don’t know. As a rule in the Monroe County School District, incompetence trumps venality. No harm looking.”
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