Louisiana school district tries to withhold data center bonus pay records
(The Center Square) – A northeast Louisiana school system that paid out five-figure teacher bonuses this year thanks to a new Meta data center put up a fight when The Center Square asked for records of who received the money. The Richland Parish School Board's defiant stance against the request for employee compensation records violated state law, said Virginia Hamrick, Louisiana staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Hamrick sent a demand letter, on behalf of the wire service, to the superintendent in September that convinced the district to release the records after a two-month battle. The school board initially refused to provide its data in spreadsheet format, saying it would only print them out and mail them. The board's records custodian also demanded The Center Square agree in advance to pay unspecified hourly fees without revealing the price beforehand. Richland Parish schools still has a public records fee schedule posted on its website claiming the right to charge requestors $30 per hour for "retrieval, review, and supervision," and $25 per hour for email searches. Those fees are not allowed under the Louisiana Public Records Law, Hamrick said. "They're on notice that this doesn't comply with
