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The department agreed to plead guilty to allegations it “arbitrarily and capriciously” denied or delayed its response to a request for the report under the deal with the state Justice Department filed Wednesday.
The report proved controversial because it contradicted a study by the Department of Administration on contracting costs. Gov. Jim Doyle pledged during the 2002 governor’s race to trim 10,000 employees from state payrolls and has argued that contractors could do some work more cheaply than state employees.
Former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, a Democrat, sued the department and its secretary, Frank Busalacchi, in June of last year. She alleged agency employees had completed the report in April 2004 and that Tim Hanley, then the president of the State Engineering Association, filed a request for the report in August 2004.
But the agency refused to turn it over to the association, a union representing state engineers, until November 2004.
DOT officials claimed they didn’t release the report because analysts were still gathering more data and there were questions about whether it was a public record, according to Lautenschlager’s lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, Karen Timberlake, the director of the Office of State Employment Relations, told Busalacchi that September the report was a sensitive issue.
According to the settlement, the Department of Transportation agreed to plead guilty to delaying a response to Hanley’s request but denied any other violations.
The settlement, filed in Dane County Circuit Court, said DOT has begun providing training on the state’s records laws to each employee who plays any role in processing record requests. Busalacchi has designated an executive staff assistant to maintain a new log recording receipt of all record requests and the date of each response, the settlement said.
The agency said its chief public relations officer will coordinate all requests and staff will work to respond within 10 days of getting the requests.
