Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 15:35:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jacob Kogan <kogan@umbc.edu>
To: mathstat_faculty@lists.umbc.edu
Cc: kogan@umbc.edu
Subject: new budget request news-appeal for help

Dear Colleagues,

As I already reported earlier on May 6, 2015 I requested from the 
the Chair, Dr. Neerchal, information covering last year and a half 
travel section of the Departmental budget. The request has been
made under the Maryland Public Information Act (PIA). The PIA 
grants the general public the right to review the available records 
and to obtain copies of those records.

On June 22, 2015 Dave Gleason (the UMBC General Counsel who handles PIA 
requests) wrote to me that a response to my request will require "a labor 
intensive process." The good faith estimate, as Mr. Gleason claims, will 
require three Department of Mathematics and Statistics employees working 
total of 24 hours. The cost estimate provided by Mr. Gleason is $620.76.
Mr. Gleason also mentioned that at this point the Department is not able 
to estimate the cost of copying, he writes "the cost of copying an unknown 
number of files at this point would be difficult." Needless to say this 
initial information concerning the expected volume of travel documents at 
the time of growing budget deficit should be a matter of grave concern
to the entire Department. 

The basic mandate of the PIA is to "enable people to have access to 
government records without unnecessary cost or delay" (see
https://www.oag.state.md.us/Opengov/pia.htm). Indeed, as you can see
from Mr. Gleason's email, any costs associated with any time devoted by 
the Office of the General Counsel in responding to the request are waived.
At the same time, as Mr. Gleason writes responding to my July 6, 2015 
request to wave the other costs, "The Department did not wish to waive 
the costs." The text of the Department's decision is not available.

It is clear that with the high cost estimate already available, and 
uncertainty concerning the final price tag I alone will not be able
to finance the request. Since the Department budget details are of 
interest to the entire Department I request you to kindly open your heart 
to make a pledge to the Departmental Travel Request Fund. Following our
tradition to ensure a completely unpressured atmosphere I will be happy 
to receive your pledges through email, through my dept mailbox, and just 
as a personal communication.

I am looking forward to your generous pledges, and, at this point, I do 
not appeal for help to staff and graduate students.

Best,

Jacob

ps. As always for your convenience all relevant documents are collected
for your inspection at https://www.eduwww.us/~eduwwwus/ms/budget/index.htm
as a service to the Department, completely free of charge.