July 9, 2012

Ms. LeAnne Lundy

Rogers, Morris & Grover, L.L.P.

5718 Westheimer Road, Suite 1200

Houston, Texas 77057

OR2012-10484

Dear Ms. Lundy:

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# 458619.

The Houston Housing Authority (the "housing authority"), which you represent, received a request for: (1) seven categories of information pertaining to individuals employed by the housing authority on two specified dates; (2) eight categories of information pertaining to individuals involuntarily dismissed, fired, terminated, discharged, asked to resign, or laid off by the housing authority during a specified time period; and (3) the same information from the same specified time period pertaining to individuals hired by the housing authority. You claim some of the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.102 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted representative sample of information. ⁽¹⁾

Section 552.102(a) of the Government Code excepts from disclosure "information in a personnel file, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." Gov't Code § 552.102(a). The Texas Supreme Court held that section 552.102(a) excepts from disclosure the dates of birth of state employees in the payroll database of the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Tex. Comptroller of Pub. Accounts v. Attorney Gen. of Tex., 354 S.W.3d 336, 348 (Tex. 2010). You have marked the birth dates of the current and former housing authority employees listed in the submitted information. Accordingly, the housing authority must withhold this information under section 552.102(a) of the Government Code. As no further exceptions to disclosure have been raised, the housing authority must release the remaining information.

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,

Kenneth Leland Conyer

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

KLC/dls

Ref: ID# 458619

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. We assume 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 those records contain substantially different types of information than that submitted to this office.

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