At 5:05 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 5, the City of Pensacola’s “Sunshine Center” sent Inweekly its reply to our request for “List of city employees who have completed DROP since Jan. 1, 2008 and the date they completed DROP.”
The four pages had the DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Program) completion dates for by all the employees in the program, but all the names were blacked out. See REDACTED_-_PR_-_W001450-080216.
Inweekly was given this explanation for the redactions:
City asserts parts of the records requested are exempt from inspection and copying and states the statutory basis as follows:
Florida Statute 121.031(5) – The names and addresses of retirees are confidential and exempt from the provisions of s.119.07(1) to the extent that no state or local governmental agency may provide the names or addresses of such persons in aggregate, compiled, or list form to any person except to a public agency engaged in official business.
We are aware of that exemption. However, not all city employees on the DROP list retired. For instance, we know CFO Dick Barker was in DROP in 2008 and still works for the City of Pensacola.
Inweekly will appeal the matter to the State Attorney’s Office.