February 2, 2010

Ms. Neera Chatterjee

Office of General Counsel

The University of Texas System

201 West Seventh Street

Austin, Texas 78701

OR2010-01609

Dear Ms. Chatterjee:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 369126.

The University of Texas-Pan American (the "university") received a request for the questions a named individual asked the requestor during an interview on October 30, 2009. You claim the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.101 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted representative sample of information. ⁽¹⁾

Section 552.101 of the Government Code excepts from public disclosure "information considered to be confidential by law, either constitutional, statutory, or by judicial decision." Gov't Code § 552.101. This exception encompasses information that other statutes make confidential. You raise section 552.101 in conjunction with section 51.971 of the Education Code, which provides in part:

(a) In this section:

(1) "Compliance program" means a process to assess and ensure compliance by the officers and employees of an institution of higher education with applicable laws, rules, regulations, and policies, including matters of:

(A) ethics and standards of conduct;

(B) financial reporting;

(C) internal accounting controls; or

(D) auditing.

. . .

(e) Information produced in a compliance program investigation the release of which would interfere with an ongoing compliance investigation is excepted from disclosure under [the Act].

Educ. Code § 51.971(a), (e). Section 51.971 defines a compliance program as a process to assess and ensure compliance by officers and employees of an institution of higher education. Id. § 51.971(a)(1). You inform this office the University of Texas System received a complaint through its compliance hotline system involving personnel matters at the university. You state that, in response to this complaint, the university "initiated its internal process of review to assess and ultimately ensure that its employees complied with all applicable law, rules, regulations and policies[,]" and that the October 30, 2009 interview was part of this process. Thus, we agree the submitted interview questions relate to the university's compliance program for purposes of section 51.971. See Educ. Code § 51.971(a). You represent this compliance investigation is currently ongoing, and that release of the submitted questions at this time would interfere with this investigation. Accordingly, we conclude the university must withhold the submitted interview questions in their entirety under section 552.101 in conjunction with section 51.971(e) of the Education Code.

This letter ruling is limited to the particular information 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 information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For more information concerning those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index_orl.php, or call the Office of the Attorney General's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions concerning the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attorney General, toll free, at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

Bob Davis

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

RSD/cc

Ref: ID# 369126

Enc. Submitted documents

cc: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. We assume that the representative sample of records submitted to this office is truly representative of the requested records as a whole. See Open Records Decision Nos. 499 (1988), 497 (1988). This open records letter does not reach, and therefore does not authorize the withholding of, any other requested records to the extent that those records contain substantially different types of information than that submitted to this office.

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