Cassia School District fiscal manager Chris James detailed his frustration with the entities he sees most often requesting public records, and the cybersecurity weak points that arise due to public record availability, to a panel comprising state superintendent Debbie Critchfield, state controller Brandon Woolf and State Board of Education chief technology officer Chris Campbell to discuss government transparency.

The panel took place in the early hours Thursday at the Idaho Association of School Administrator’s summer conference. It was the third and final day of sessions for the annual gathering. Administrators voiced concerns about cybersecurity and interaction with legislators when panelists asked for their input.

James explained how scammers will obtain district email addresses and attempt to change an employee’s direct deposit information to reroute funds to themselves. They will also do this, he said, with vendors on the district’s payroll.

His district doesn’t change payroll information automatically, James said, but it’s still concerning. “It’s a weekly, if not daily occurrence, some of this stuff.”

Not every problem he faces is criminal, though. Private business are the most frequent requestors of public records, he said. Businesses use fiscal records from the district to shape their sales pitches based on precise knowledge of the district’s spending on vendors.

James’ experience reflects a little-known statistic about public records: in a 2017 analysis of requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which does not regard school districts but instead federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Education, the Columbia Journalism Review found 39% of FOIA requests were made by businesses, and only 7.6% by news agencies.

Woolf spoke about the risks of public record transparency as well, telling a story about how his office published an eminent domain payment made by the Idaho Department of Transportation the day the check was written. A scammer saw the transaction and called the recipient of the payment, impersonating the state agency, and asked the recipient for his banking information. The man didn’t know it was a scam call, and gave them his banking information.

The situation was compounded, Woolf said, because the scammer made the call on a weekend when state agencies aren’t working. They resolved the issue on Monday, he said, but the state’s inability to respond quickly in that situation worried him.

The hourlong panel’s discussion of transparency was mostly positive aside from the examples of public records making administrators’ jobs harder; gathered leaders agreed upon the value of government transparency. Woolf quoted late U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, saying “sunshine is the best form of disinfectant,” referring to sunshine laws which promote government transparency.

Woolf, who doesn’t typically interact with educators, took the opportunity to ask administrators how he can respond to frequent requests from legislators about how education funds are being used. One administrator chimed in saying the “vast, vast majority” pay the workforce – Critchfield confirmed, saying roughly 85% of most districts’ budgets go toward salaries.

Administrators expressed a desire for legislators to come and visit their schools rather than asking the state controller, vaguely, how funds are being used.

“I have never heard of a legislator coming to a school district and asking ‘hey, how can I become educated about how you’re spending your funds?’ Instead, I think they’re looking for a ‘gotcha’ instead of getting the facts,” said one administrator. Woolf, with pen and paper, took note.