With the clock ticking toward the election, the fight is heating up over a plan to put a cap on state spending in Nebraska.
As the leader of an effort to get voters to approve a cap, Mike Groene says he suspected that school officials and other public officials were using public resources to fight the effort. He made 424 public records requests to schools and other government agencies to review their e-mail records and other documents.
Westside Community Schools told Groene it would cost more than $800,000 to fulfill his request.
Groene didn't pay up, but on Thursday, he fired a broad legal salvo alleging that tax dollars are being used to fight the spending lid measure.
He also alleged that some government officials thwarted the group's attempts to access public records in their case.
"These are blatant, blatant abuses," Groene said at a Capitol news conference.
Groene, of North Platte, led the petition drive to get the Stop Over Spending Nebraska measure -- known as SOS -- on the Nov. 7 ballot.
He filed complaints Thursday with the state Accountability and Disclosure Commission and the Attorney General's Office.
Among the allegations:
Carol Logan, an employee for the Ashland-Greenwood School District, used her public e-mail account and her time at work on Sept 5 to "conduct political activities ... included arranging to use the public school defeat SOS in November.' "
Valley County Treasurer Janet Suminski sent an e-mail Sept. 12 to members of the state County Treasurers Association saying that "if this amendment would pass, it would result in serious state budget limits and cuts, which would mean a loss in revenue to counties and other entities. Loss of revenue to counties, schools, etc., would result in an increase in property taxes."
Superintendent Jeffrey Walburn of Cedar Bluffs Public Schools repeatedly thwarted Groene and lid supporters in their efforts to review the school's e-mail and other records, in violation of the state public records law.
Groene also said that while the Millard School District in the Omaha area said it would cost $200 to search its e-mail records, its neighbor, Westside Community Schools, said it would cost more than $800,000 to perform a similar request.
Logan, Suminski and Walburn declined to comment.
Kent Kingston, Westside's director of technology, estimated in a written response to one of Groene's requests that it would cost more than $860,000 to provide the information Groene wanted -- three temporary workers working 40 hours per week for 84 weeks.
"He had 17 different search requests on 914 individual staff accounts for 74 days worth of e-mails," Kingston said Thursday. "It's a painful process in terms of the amount of time it takes."
Of the 424 public records requests Groene and his group made to schools and other government agencies, 201 responded.
Marnie Jensen, one of the lawyers for the group, said complaints might be filed against the 223 schools and agencies that did not respond.
Using public resources to campaign for a candidate or ballot issue is subject to a civil penalty of $2,000 per violation.
Violations of public records statutes by public officials can result in their removals and are misdemeanors, subject to three months in jail and $500 fines.
Jess Wolf, president of the Nebraska State Education Association, which is leading the opposition to the lid, said of the allegations of school employees using school computers: If it did happen, "I'm sure it was inadvertent."
Gene Summerlin, another lawyer for the spending lid group, said the situation was frustrating.
"If you've got public officials and employees refusing to provide public records ... they're either intentionally trying to avoid their public obligation to comply -- or they're incompetent."
Groene has said the cap, which will be on the ballot as Measure 423, is needed because state spending will go up 7.8 percent and 7 percent, respectively, the next two years.
Groene said the state budget will have increased 282 percent from 1984 through 2007, when the cost of living during that period increased only 83 percent.
The ballot initiative seeks a constitutional amendment that would tie state spending to cost-of-living and population changes.
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