Sparta business administrator says he 'inadvertently' released the information. Above, Sparta Town Hall.
SPARTA — When Jesse Wolosky filed an Open Public Records Act request attempting to find out how the Sparta School District spent its $62 million annual budget, he just wanted access to the master vendor list.
The list would break down the individuals and companies the school district cut checks to throughout 2009.
The OPRA became too transparent last Thursday, however, when Wolosky obtained the information he wanted and much, much more. Wolosky received "hundreds upon hundreds" of Social Security numbers and federal employee identification numbers of school district vendors.
"This is extremely careless," said Wolosky, a Sparta resident. "Normally they retract the Social Security numbers and telephone numbers. It’s one click on an Excel spreadsheet. This is negligent and someone needs to hold them accountable."
Sparta school business administrator Warren Ceurvels, who sent Wolosky the documents in an e-mail, said today the information was released "inadvertently" and that "it was an unfortunate mistake."
Ceurvels said the Sparta Board of Education is aware of the situation. The school district will send letters to people mentioned in the document given to Wolosky to alert them of the mistake and potential risk.
Wolosky, a self-proclaimed concerned citizen and public activist, said he plans to do nothing with the Social Security numbers. Ceurvels said he expects Wolosky to return the information as soon as possible.
Catherine Stargill, the executive director of the New Jersey Government Records Council, said OPRA, which was enacted in 2002, exempts Social Security numbers from being released in OPRA requests. There is no formal policy or statute to penalize custodians who disclose this information, said Stargill.
Ceurvels and Stargill said they were not aware of the document with the private information being given to anyone else.
Stargill said, "If the individuals whose information was released get wind of this, I’m not even sure what they could do."