A common request that cities and towns receive under the SC Freedom of Information Act is for some of their personnel files or salary information.
The FOIA law states that any person has the right to inspect or to copy any public record of a public body, unless an exception listed in the law applies. It also defines what a public record is very broadly, and so virtually all personnel records are included in the definition. Still, some exceptions exist.
Personnel files
SC Code Section 30-4-40(a), part of the FOIA law, states that a “public body may but is not required to exempt” certain information from disclosure. For personnel files, the exception is personal information where disclosure would be an “unreasonable invasion of personal privacy.”
Court cases have narrowly construed this exception while weighing the public’s interest against personal privacy.
In the 2004 SC Court of Appeals case Burton v. York County Sheriff’s Department, a newspaper made a FOIA request for employment records of deputies who had been suspended without pay. Balancing the employees’ privacy interest against the public’s interest in knowing about the alleged misconduct, the court found that the way that the Sheriff’s Department employees handles their duties “to be a large and vital public interest that outweighs their desire to remain out of the public eye.”
In the 2019 case SC Lottery Commission v. Glassmeyer, however, the Court of Appeals reached a different result. A private citizen made a FOIA request for personal information about winners of lottery prizes of more than $1 million, including the winners’ names, addresses, phone numbers and prize amount. The court determined that, given the public’s limited interest in this information, the privacy interests prevailed. In 2021, the SC Supreme Court reversed this decision and remanded for further proceedings, and so the case was not concluded.
When a municipality receives a request for personnel files, it should balance privacy interests against the public’s interest in the files. In some instances, such as senior management or law enforcement officials, the public interest will likely prevail. In other cases, a public body may determine that information is sufficiently personal and private that, in the absence of a compelling public interest, it need not be produced.
There are other considerations as well:
- Health and medical information is protected from disclosure under federal and state law and should be separated from the overall personnel file and protected. Most other items in a personnel file are presumptively subject to disclosure under FOIA.
- SC Code Section 30-4-40(b) provides that even if part of the personnel file is exempt, the municipality should redact or omit the exempt information and provide the rest.
Salary information
SC Code Section 30-4-40(a)(6) requires a public body to provide “the exact compensation of each person or employee” earning $50,000 or more. This requirement also applies to all part-time
employees, all persons paid for special appearances or performances, and all employees at the level of agency or department head. This provision has been interpreted to require disclosure of the exact compensation of elected officials.
For employees earning between $30,000 and $50,000, the municipality must disclose compensation levels within a range of $4,000. For employees earning less than $30,000, the disclosure requirements depend on whether the employee is classified or unclassified under a system that establishes pay grades by job category.
- Classified employees: the public body must disclose the salary schedule showing the compensation range for that classification, including longevity steps.
- Unclassified employees: the public body must disclose the compensation levels within a range of $4,000.
Although FOIA is not specific on the items that are included in “compensation,” the SC Attorney General’s Office has indicated that compensation includes all benefits, bonuses and allowances.