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Office of the Attorney General - State of Texas John Cornyn |
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November 20, 2001 Mr. John King
OR2001-5375 Dear Mr. King: You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 155164. The Texas Department of Information Resources (the "department") received three requests for information relating to the bid process for a contract for instructor-led training.(1) You do not take a position as to whether the requested information must be released, other than to note that the department is contractually prohibited from disseminating the information to a third party absent written permission. However, pursuant to section 552.305 of the Government Code, you notified representatives of Gartner, Inc., Giga Information Group, Inc., and Meta Group, Inc. of the request for their information and invited these entities to submit arguments to this office as to why the information at issue should not be released.(2) We received no arguments from any of these companies. With regard to your argument that the department is contractually prohibited from releasing the requested information without written permission from the vendors, we note that information that is subject to disclosure under the Public Information Act may not be withheld simply because the party submitting it anticipates or requests confidentiality. See Industrial Found. v. Texas Indus. Accident Bd., 540 S.W.2d 668, 676-78 (Tex. 1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 931 (1977). Further, it is well-settled that a governmental body's promise to keep information confidential is not a basis for withholding that information from the public, unless the governmental body has specific authority to keep the information confidential. See Open Records Decision Nos. 514 at 1 (1988), 476 at 1-2 (1987, 444 at 6 (1986 ). You do not cite to any such specific statutory authority in this case, nor are we aware of any. Consequently, the submitted information must fall within an exception to disclosure in order to be withheld from the requestors. As neither you nor any of the third parties have raised an exception to disclosure, we have no basis for finding the information confidential. Therefore, the submitted information labeled Exhibit 1 must be released to the requestors. This letter ruling is limited to the particular records at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other records or any other circumstances. This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For example, governmental bodies are prohibited from asking the attorney general to reconsider this ruling. Gov't Code § 552.301(f). If the governmental body wants to challenge this ruling, the governmental body must appeal by filing suit in Travis County within 30 calendar days. Id. § 552.324(b). In order to get the full benefit of such an appeal, the governmental body must file suit within 10 calendar days. Id. § 552.353(b)(3), (c). If the governmental body does not appeal this ruling and the governmental body does not comply with it, then both the requestor and the attorney general have the right to file suit against the governmental body to enforce this ruling. Id. § 552.321(a). If this ruling requires the governmental body to release all or part of the requested information, the governmental body is responsible for taking the next step. Based on the statute, the attorney general expects that, within 10 calendar days of this ruling, the governmental body will do one of the following three things: 1) release the public records; 2) notify the requestor of the exact day, time, and place that copies of the records will be provided or that the records can be inspected; or 3) notify the requestor of the governmental body's intent to challenge this letter ruling in court. If the governmental body fails to do one of these three things within 10 calendar days of this ruling, then the requestor should report that failure to the attorney general's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at 877/673-6839. The requestor may also file a complaint with the district or county attorney. Id. § 552.3215(e). If this ruling requires or permits the governmental body to withhold all or some of the requested information, the requestor can appeal that decision by suing the governmental body. Id. § 552.321(a); Texas Department of Public Safety v. Gilbreath, 842 S.W.2d 408,411 (Tex. App.--Austin 1992, no writ). Please remember that under the Act the release of information triggers certain procedures for costs and charges to the requestor. If records are released in compliance with this ruling, be sure that all charges for the information are at or below the legal amounts. Questions or complaints about over-charging must be directed to Hadassah Schloss at the General Services Commission at 512/475-2497. If the governmental body, the requestor, or any other person has questions or comments about this ruling, they may contact our office. Although there is no statutory deadline for contacting us, the attorney general prefers to receive any comments within 10 calendar days of the date of this ruling. Sincerely, Michael A. Pearle
c: Mr. Mark Markham
Mr. Dallas Osborn
Ms. Bonnie J. Horwitz
Mr. Frank Murphy
Ms. Jane Powell
Ms. Nelia Box
Footnotes 1. We note that the first requestor seeks "a bid tabulation sheet . . . along with a list of committee members who chose the vendors." The second requestor asked to "view the other bids." The third requestor seeks "open records on the bid." You have submitted as responsive to the request only a table labeled Exhibit 1 which you refer to as "the summarized statements." Therefore, this ruling does not address any other information that may have been encompassed by these requests, and is limited to the information submitted as responsive by the department. See Gov't Code § 552.301(e)(1)(D) (governmental body requesting a decision from Attorney General must submit a copy of the specific information requested, or representative sample if voluminous amount of information was requested). 2. See Gov't Code § 552.305 (permitting interested third party to submit to attorney general reasons why requested information should not be released); Open Records Decision No. 542 (1990) (determining that statutory predecessor to Gov't Code § 552.305 permits governmental body to rely on interested third party to raise and explain applicability of exception in Open Records Act in certain circumstances). POST OFFICE BOX 12548, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711-2548 TEL: (512) 463-2100 WEB: WWW.OAG.STATE.TX.US |