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Senate committee recommends exemption for corrections staff schedules after security concern
Summary
The Senate Industry and Business Committee voted 5-0 to recommend passage of House Bill 1415, which would make Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employee work schedules exempt from public-records law after testimony that a staffer shared schedules with a former inmate.
The Senate Industry and Business Committee voted 5-0 to recommend passage of House Bill 1415, a measure to add Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employee work schedules to a list of exempt public records.
Supporters told the committee the change is intended to protect staff safety after a recent incident in which an employee photographed and shared unit work schedules with a former resident. "House bill 14 15 would add the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employee work schedules as exempt records," Representative Emily O'Brien said in opening testimony. Deputy Chief Human Resources Officer Rick Peterson of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation testified, "It is important for the personal safety of DOCR employees that work schedules are not open records."
The bill would treat DOCR employee schedules similarly to law-enforcement scheduling exemptions. Peterson described an internal incident in which a staff member photographed schedules and sent them to a former inmate; that event, and the department's subsequent inquiry, prompted the change. "When work schedules are open, it becomes too far too easy to pinpoint the location of an employee for someone intending harm or coerce a DOCR public safety officer," Peterson said, adding that the department had assumed schedule confidentiality until advised by the attorney general's office that DOCR schedules were not covered under the law-enforcement exemption.
Committee members questioned whether the issue had produced specific threats or repeated requests for schedules. Peterson said the particular misconduct was isolated in his 30 years with the agency but that the episode revealed a legal gap: "I had assumed for 30 years that schedules were classified. This particular instance'we were going to discipline this person and our attorney at the AG's office told us, well, you guys aren't included under that. Your schedules are open records."
Following testimony the committee moved and approved a do-pass recommendation on House Bill 1415 by voice roll call; the clerk recorded an affirmative vote from five members. The committee record shows a 5-0 recommendation in favor of forwarding the bill to the full Senate.
The measure now moves to the full Senate for further consideration.
