In the public interest

Privacy trumped by head coach paid millions to leave

Debate continues over how many millions of dollars Brett Bielema, former head football coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, will get in his buyout.

The latest reports suggest that sum could be as high as $15.4 million, based on an agreement made public last week. The agreement is one Bielema struck with the Razorback Foundation, which is reportedly still negotiating with the former coach on the actual buyout.

The nonprofit foundation is a donor-supported organization that pumps private money into Razorback athletics. Its dealings are usually outside the public’s view.

This particular agreement, however, was on file within the University of Arkansas, the public entity that employed Bielema until it fired him on Nov. 24 as the Razorbacks concluded a 4-8 season.

The UA ultimately had to release the agreement after the Democrat-Gazette requested the document under the state’s open-records law.

The public now knows not only what was in Bielema’s contract with the UA but also in his agreement with the Razorback Foundation, thanks to Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s interpretation of the applicable law.

Bielema, like any public employee potentially impacted by release of a personnel record, had the right to ask the attorney general to weigh his personal privacy against the public interest.

She first determined that the UA-held copy of the agreement was indeed subject to the state’s Freedom of Information Act and that the record in question is a “personnel record.”

Such records are supposed to be open to inspection and copying except “to the extent that disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of person privacy.”

The Arkansas Supreme Court found in an earlier case that “substantial” public interest will usually outweigh any individual privacy interests. And Rutledge concluded in her nonbinding opinion that public interest in this particular record is “beyond question” substantial.

She redacted a couple of signatures from the document but otherwise said the FOI Act requires its release.

The UA didn’t contest Rutledge’s conclusion and a spokesman said it had planned to release the document before Bielema asked Rutledge to intervene.

The outcome is good news for those who favor open government and champion the FOI Act that grants citizens of this state access to most public records and public meetings.

Notably, the attorney general did not address whether the FOI Act should apply to the Razorback Foundation, a question that has been raised repeatedly through the years.

The foundation maintains it should not be subject to the FOI Act because the foundation does not receive public money.

The foundation certainly does impact public policy, including the hiring and firing of coaches and athletic directors.

Remember, Jeff Long, the former athletic director, was also fired by the UA and will get $4.6 million in his buyout. It, too, will be paid by the Razorback Foundation.

The foundation also will pay whatever buyout an incoming coach owes to his former employer.

Such arrangements, which are admittedly paid for by donors, not taxpayers, obviously advance the UA’s contract negotiations for coaches and sweeten the pot for those who win.

The relationship, particularly the financial entanglement, between a private foundation and a public institution will always bear watching. But that will be difficult unless and until such public scrutiny is allowed under the law.

Meanwhile, most Arkansans can’t even imagine the kind of money Bielema or Long will pocket just for going away.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports the median household income in Arkansas at just more than $42,000 a year.

That’s the figure that pops out when the households of the state’s comparatively few millionaires and billionaires are lumped in with all the working stiffs drawing minimum wage and better.

Half the households earn more than $42,000 a year. Half earn less.

A whole lot of these families live paycheck to paycheck, struggling to pay the mortgage or buy groceries to feed the family.

Those on the lower side of the median are less likely than the other half to be able to afford tickets to a Razorback football game, much less contemplate a buyout like Bielema might get — worth a mere 366 times the median annual income in Arkansas.

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