LA School District Solves Scandal Problem by Deleting All Emails

keep-calm-and-delete-emails

They’re doing it for the children. Also to save money. This is the first time that L.A. Unified has done anything to save money so that alone should be triggering some alarms.

The Los Angeles Unified school board, under fire because of the release of internal emails outlining a possibly inappropriate relationship between its executives and Apple, as well as textbook publisher Pearson, has decided to buy a service that will automatically destroy staff emails after one year, according to KPCC.

School district general counsel David Holmquist asserted that the service, designed by Microsoft, will permit L.A. Unified to refuse any California Public Records Act requests for emails that are more than one year old.

Problem solved. Just call this the Lois Lerner solution to record transparency. You can’t ask for emails that are deleted.

But don’t worry. It’s being done for the benefit of the public.

“Because the District relies on public funds, it is imperative for the District to minimize its costs and, therefore, dispose of information and records in a timely manner.”

Sure. Imperative.

Just think of all the money they’ll be saving in lawsuits, prosecutions and PR experts. It’s a windfall for the public.

This is the greatest money saving service to the public since the Watergate coverup. Just think about how much money that would have saved.

The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office is reopening an investigation into the matter; it had closed a prior investigation of the iPad/Pearson purchase, but the release of the emails has prompted another inquiry.

If a private company were doing this, they would be dragged into court. But the school bureaucracy continues to be impervious to the law.

Because they want to save you money.

 

  • http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/ Edward Cline

    Because they want to save you money, and also their butts. It’s a slick way of saying to the public: “What scandal? It never happened. If the emails don’t exist, it never happened. Emails exist in reality. We simply erase reality by erasing the emails. So…show me the scandal.” Cue laugh track.

  • Atikva

    Save taxpayers’ money? That would be a first time! These people are rotten to the core.

  • Christopher Riddle

    They have been “studying”with The IRS!!!

  • CAStr8talk

    I used to work for a municipality in California. The orders were to delete all emails as soon as there was no use for them for your job. Ideally you were to delete the email on the same day you got it as that way it would not be copied to the nightly backup and thus there would be no record of that email. There is a citizen’s watchdog group in town. The instructions for them were to obstruct them as much as possible and not supply any FOI records requests until the maximum amount of time specified by law had passed. Additionally, any questionable financial transactions were entered into the computer system under oddball account numbers so they would be hard to find. Only managers would enter the questionable transactions into the system. Then all FOI requests were processed by an account clerk, ignorant of the oddball account numbers, who would only do searches for the transactions using the normal account numbers, which of course would not turn up the questionable transactions.

  • Pete

    Records retention is important and mandatory for private businesses and individuals. Individuals have to retain 7 years of tax records and the IRS will go back father if they find a problem.

    Here is an excerpt form a website about records retention.

    Business records retention is required by the Internal Revenue Code, Employee Retirement Income Security Act and Uniform Commercial Code”

    Schoolbooks are big business. why would not a school district, a large public corporation not have to retain records for the same length of time as individuals and private corporations?

  • Pete

    - Unfortunately we have to get down into the weeds on every issue.

    - Elected Politicians and bureaucrats are playing games with the public.

    - They think to avoid punishment for scandals by disappearing records.

    - At the same time they demand and have written into law all the records we have to keep and the contigencies to ensure the survival of the records.

    - uslegal.com
    - recordretentiononline.com

    • Yourbithes

      Start working from home! Great job for students, stay-at-home moms or anyone needing an extra income… You only need a computer and a reliable internet connection… Make $90 hourly and up to $12000 a month by following link at the bottom and signing up… You can have your first check by the end of this week…………..

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  • objectivefactsmatter

    Welcome to the Repu… the whatever. the.state..of California!