As part of an investigation into changes in the ranks of high-level administrators employed by the Shawnee Mission School District since Superintendent Jim Hinson took over in 2013, the Shawnee Mission Post on March 17 submitted two requests under the Kansas Open Records Act. Those requests sought:

• The contracts of all district-level employees with the titles of superintendent, deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent, associate superintendent, chief academic officer, director and assistant director for the academic year 2012-2013.
• The current contracts of all district-level employees with the titles superintendent, deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent, chief academic officer, director and assistant director.

On Tuesday, the district responded with a request for payment of $80, estimating that each request would take four hours to fulfill, and that it would charge $10 per hour for personnel to process the request. The district’s full response letter is copied below. (Click the image to enlarge it if you’re having a hard time with the copy):

The eight hour time estimate causes us some concern — we simply can’t understand how it would take eight full hours to pull the requested documents. We’re consulting with our attorney to determine next steps. We’ll keep you posted.

At $80, however, the price tag is substantially lower than the $1,054 estimate the district tagged on to open records requests we submitted March 7. The district estimated those requests, which sought email correspondence referencing Mallory Zila sent or received between April 1, 2016, and August 30, 2016, and electronic mail correspondence between Deb Zila and Jim Hinson from Jan. 1, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2016, would take 20 hours of staff time to comply with. We submitted another set of requests related to the hiring of Mallory Zila on March 13. We received a letter from the district indicating that it needed more time to price out those requests. To date, we have not received additional information on that request, but are expecting the pricing information by the end of this week.