February 4, 2010

Mr. Hans P. Graff

Assistant General Counsel

Houston Independent School District

Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center

4400 West 18^th Street

Houston, Texas 77092-8501

OR2010-01749

Dear Mr. Graff:

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# 369861.

The Houston Independent School District (the "district") received a request for documentation pertaining to: 1) a grievance filed by a named individual; 2) a particular call for service; 3) the investigation of the requestor; 4) a specified investigation, including e-mails from a particular time period; and 5) phone calls made to a certain telephone number on June 27, 2008. ⁽¹⁾ You claim the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.116 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted information.

Initially, we note you have only submitted information responsive to the fourth category of the requested information. Therefore, to the extent any additional responsive information existed at the time the district received the request for information, we assume you have released it to the requestor. If you have not released any such information, you must do so at this time. See Gov't Code §§ 552.301(a), .302; Open Records Decision No. 664 (2000) (noting that if a governmental body concludes that no exceptions apply to the requested information, it must release information as soon as possible under circumstances).

You raise section 552.116 of the Government Code for the submitted information. Section 552.116 provides:

(a) An audit working paper of an audit of the state auditor or the auditor of a state agency, an institution of higher education as defined by Section 61.003, Education Code, a county, a municipality, a school district, or a joint board operating under Section 22.074, Transportation Code, including any audit relating to the criminal history background check of a public school employee, is excepted from [required public disclosure under the Act]. If information in an audit working paper is also maintained in another record, that other record is not excepted from [required public disclosure] by this section.

(b) In this section:

(1) 'Audit' means an audit authorized or required by a statute of this state or the United States, the charter or an ordinance of a municipality, an order of the commissioners court of a county, a resolution or other action of a board of trustees of a school district, including an audit by the district relating to the criminal history background check of a public school employee, or a resolution or other action of a joint board described by Subsection (a) and includes an investigation.

(2) 'Audit working paper' includes all information, documentary or otherwise, prepared or maintained in conducting an audit or preparing an audit report, including:

(A) intra-agency and interagency communications; and

(B) drafts of the audit report or portions of those drafts.

Gov't Code § 552.116. You inform this office that the district's Board of Trustees created the Office of Inspector General to oversee and coordinate internal audits and investigations. You state the submitted information consists of audit working papers of an audit conducted by the district's Office of Inspector General. Based on your representations and our review, we agree the submitted information consists of audit working papers as defined in section 552.116(b)(2). Accordingly, the district may withhold this information under section 552.116 of the Government 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,

Christina Alvarado

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

CA/rl

Ref: ID# 369861

Enc. Submitted documents

cc: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. We note the district received clarification of a portion of this request from the requestor. See Gov't Code § 552.222(b) (governmental body may communicate with requestor for purpose of clarifying or narrowing request for information).

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