The District of Columbia’s finance office has let a legal deadline expire on a request to explain how many executives it has hired or promoted.
The Examiner filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act on Nov. 27 asking the finance office to explain how many officials it had hired or promoted to executive level since fiscal 2000. It also asked the office to explain how many of those executives were given bonuses.
The finance office is a multi-billion-dollar agency charged with balancing the District’s budget and fighting waste, fraud and abuse.
The Examiner has already reported on dozens of city officials who walked away with thousands in back-to-back cash bonuses earlier this year.
The legal deadline for the request lapsed Tuesday.
Robert James, deputy general counsel for the finance office, said that “practical realities” prevent his office from responding to many FOIA requests on time.
“I don’t think anyone is withholding the information,” James said.
The finance office already has intervened to block two requests for information on how the D.C. schools obtained and used donated funds. Spokeswoman Maryann Young said she had a request “in writing” from the U.S. attorney’s office not to disclose that information because it might be relevant to the investigation of the charter schools scandal.
Young refused to provide a copy of the U.S. attorney’s request.
Phil Mendelson, D-at large, is chair of the District Council’s Judiciary Committee. He said that he is mystified at the brazenness with which city agencies violate the FOIA.
“The business of the government should be so open that neither The Examiner nor anybody should resort to FOIA,” he said. “Why they screw around with the law, force citizens and the media to go into court, then lose … nothing’s gained. What’s there to hide?”
