Confidentiality regarding foster home information

Foster records request denied.
Margaret McGurk, Cincinnati Enquirer, Oct. 3, 2006. Metro, pg. 1B.

Family services won't give out data on parents
Deceit allowed Liz and David Carroll Jr. to become foster parents to Marcus Fiesel, the 3-year-old who died in their Clermont County home in August.

Now, the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services has rejected The Enquirer's efforts to find out how many other foster parents might be hiding damaging information about themselves in order to qualify for state licensing.

The Carrolls lied about owning their rented home, claimed non-existent sources of income, hid a recent bankruptcy filing and claimed that their marriage was stable, even though David Carroll Jr. had moved out, then returned with a girlfriend who moved into the couple's home.

Department director Barbara Riley rebuffed the request for the names of every licensed foster parent in the state. She argued that it would be illegal and improper to make the information public.

"It's not a secret for those who need to know," she said. "This is not a record or records that should be, or (is) allowed to be, released to anyone, except those who have a need to place foster children in foster homes."

The records at issue do not contain information about foster children, but Riley argued that the location of threatened children could be determined if the foster-parent list were made public.

"A school would know the foster parent. There are linkages between that child and that placement," she said. "There is a need on our side to successfully recruit and train foster parents," she added, an issue not covered by any public records law.

"We believe releasing these names and addresses would be counterproductive."

Ohio counties collectively pay hundreds of millions of dollars to almost 11,000 foster parents to provide the critical public service of caring for vulnerable children. In that capacity, their identities should be public, said attorney Alphonse Gerhardstein, a specialist in civil-rights cases.

"These are no-brainer public records. This is a state vendor that has to get licensed to do the work."

Gerhardstein called Ohio's open-records law among the most "citizen-friendly" in the country. "This law represents a very deep commitment to open government, and the Ohio Supreme Count has been a fantastic guardian of public records."

The department cited an Ohio law on adoptions and an Ohio Supreme Court case barring release of details about children enrolled at a Columbus swimming pool as the legal basis for its decision.

Attorney Jack Greiner, who represents The Enquirer in First Amendment and open-records cases, said those citations are not relevant.

"The request is not for any information about kids," Greiner said. "It's certainly not about adoptive situations. To the extent foster parents ultimately may adopt, you wouldn't know that from the list of foster caregivers. I think that's sort of absurd."

Said Paul McMasters, ombudsman for the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center: "There are always arguments to be made for secrecy, for keeping the public out of the public's business.

"Sometimes, it's not as easy to see the good in making such information available, but the bottom line is this (request) is not so a newspaper can publish a story or so that people can invade other people's privacy. It is at the very bottom for the protection of the most defenseless among us."

Paradoxically, official reluctance to opening such records often works against the government's interests, Gerhardstein said.

"As a person who sues the government for a living, I will tell you that my access to public records has reduced the number of lawsuits I file. I get a very good look at the case. I see what the (agencies) did and said and recorded, and many times the government work was adequate and fair.

"It's important for people to know that these laws help us get reassured that government usually does a good job. It's only when the government shuts down, hides the ball, delays the response, that we begin to worry that something fishy is going on."

Greiner said: "The system traditionally has been one of confidentially and secrecy. I think trying to get them to change isn't going to fly very easily."