Tahoe Douglas Sewer sued for failure to provide pay records

The Tahoe Douglas Sewer Improvement District is being sued for failure to abide by the Nevada Public Records Act and not providing payroll records when asked.

In a lawsuit filed in the Ninth Judicial District Court (covers Douglas County), the Nevada Policy Research Institute claims that the TDSI has refused to their request for the district's compensation records.

They say that, in the seven years NPRI has run TransparentNevada.com, the Tahoe Douglas Sewer Improvement District has been the least responsive government agency in Nevada.

In January, NPRI called District General Manager Janet Murphy to find out what the district's email address was so they could submit an official request for the records. NPRI says she refused and told them to submit the request by mail on official letterhead.

The NPRA states that any member of the public may make a public records request in either written or oral form, without providing identifying information, or submitting the request on official letterhead.

NPRI seeks TDSID’s payroll records for its TransparentNevada.com project. TransparentNevada is a website dedicated to serving Nevada’s public by providing easily accessible and searchable compensation records for state and local government employees.

The NPRI's Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation Director Joseph Becker sent a letter to Murphy in April. In the letter he said this would be their final attempt to get the information and if she didn't provide it they would resort to litigation. She had five days to respond but as of August 20 she had not.

"In the seven years NPRI has run TransparentNevada.com, the Tahoe Douglas Sewer Improvement District has been the least responsive government agency in Nevada," Becker said in his letter. "It has violated the public records law by imposing illegal requirements on the public records request itself. Yet, even when NPRI met those unnecessary requirements, the District violated the Public Records Act by not responding with the records or a timeline for providing them."

So far, over 100 Nevada government agencies have supplied over 700,000 payroll records for publication.

According to records on line, TDSI had four or under employees and has annual revenue of $725,000 to $750,000. The provide services to customers from Glenbrook to the Round Hill General Improvement District boundary.