HCPSS MPIA Request #2019-066

Responsive to this request, no existing data from the personnel system used by HCPSS during the timeframe requested contain the reasons for personnel position changes (transfers). Additionally, in order to review individual hard-copy personnel files for transfer documentation to locate instances of administrative transfers prior to 2016, staff would have to search through all files manually including archived files for former employees as such files are not kept by position type (Central Office Secretaries). Even if staff were to retrieve and review all personnel files, release of the actual transfer documentation would require redaction to remove all identifying personnel information, adding further to the scope of preparation of a response as well as making the documentation unusable in terms of identifying the number of such transfers per employee. Alternately, tallying how many administrative transfers each employee had following review of such files by Human Resources for response to this request would be generation of new data not currently used by HCPSS. Under the MPIA process, and as advised in the Fourteenth Edition of the Maryland Public Information Act Manual created by Maryland’s Office of the Attorney General, an agency is only obligated to produce existing records and is not required to generate new data or summarize data.