After months of legal proceedings, a judge says the Vermont Information Technology Leaders has to turn over an unredacted copy of a contract to a member of the public who sued for the information.
Judge Mary Miles Teachout told a lawyer for VITL at a hearing on Monday in Washington Superior Court in Montpelier that he must send a copy to the plaintiff, Stephen Whitaker, by Friday.
In 2015, Whitaker filed a request under the Vermont Public Records Act with VITL, a publicly funded nonprofit organization regulated by the Green Mountain Care Board that manages a statewide warehouse of data from electronic health records.
Whitaker asked for a copy of VITL’s contract with a company called Medicity and compensation information for VITL employees, among other things. When Whitaker did not get the information he was seeking, he sued in Washington Superior Court.
Teachout ruled nearly one year ago that VITL—which the Legislature created and gets a significant amount of funding from the Department of Vermont Health Access—is the legal equivalent of a state agency and must comply with the Vermont Public Records Act.
In accordance with that ruling, VITL gave records to Whitaker. However, VITL redacted parts of the contract with Medicity, citing a confidentiality exception in the Vermont Public Records Act, and redacted names of employees on a salary list, citing privacy concerns, according to court documents.
On June 27, Teachout ruled that there was “no legal basis” for keeping the employee names private because the Vermont Public Records Act clearly says that salary information for “employees of public agencies shall not be exempt from public inspection and copying.” She ordered VITL to produce the original records.
In that same order, Teachout ordered VITL to turn over the original copy of the contract with Medicity within 30 days. She said the 30-day period gave Medicity an opportunity to make a case for confidentiality concerns.
The 30-day window came and went without an explanation from Medicity, Whitaker said at the hearing Monday, and he did not receive an unredacted copy of the contract.
Robert DiPalma, a lawyer for Paul, Frank and Collins in Burlington who has been representing VITL in the case, said Medicity exceeded its 30-day period for responding to the court order.
Teachout said she would not extend the time period. “Medicity did have its opportunity to intervene and protect whatever it wanted to but did not take advantage,” she said.
Teachout told DiPalma to produce the unredacted contract by Friday. DiPalma said in an interview he plans to turn over the unredacted contract.
Whitaker also said at the hearing that the information he received regarding salaries is insufficient. The information was for one payroll period, according to Whitaker, and did not include information on bonuses that may be paid throughout the year.
DiPalma argued that Whitaker could do simple multiplication to deduce each person’s annual salary. Additionally, DiPalma said that he told Whitaker that benefits for each employee are equal to 35.9 percent of pay, and he could multiply that out.
Whitaker told Teachout he thinks the executives get bonuses, but does not have evidence.
“I believe that benefits are different for the multi-hundred-thousand dollar employees than they are for the rank and file employees,” he said.
Jon Evans, the CEO of VITL, made $180,675 in base pay plus $24,606 in benefits in 2014, according to the organization’s Form 990. Five other executives made more than $100,000 that year, according to the 990.
Teachout told Whitaker to make a detailed legal argument to the court with regard to the salary information in the coming weeks.
Whitaker’s new arguments are due Oct. 2.
