February 8th, 2010 Will Schendel
Confidentiality of Alaska Workers Comp Files
One of the Todd Palin emails recently obtained by MSNBC included a state official’s plan to check workers comp records about a former CEO of Matanuska Maid, Terry Clark.
It’s only recently that such records have been comprehensively protected against public disclosure. The relevant statute, AS 23.30.107, currently reads:
(b) Medical or rehabilitation records, and the employee’s name, address, social security number, electronic mail address, and telephone number contained on any record, in an employee’s file maintained by the division or held by the board or the commission are not public records subject to public inspection and copying under AS 40.25.
The underlined section was effective only from September 2, 2008, forward. SLA 2008, ch. 61, §§ 1, 2. Before then, all that was protected were medical and rehab records, not the identities of Workers Comp claimants.
The state official offered to check the Workers Comp records for Palin (without specifying what information he intended to collect) in June of 2007, a year before the amendment to the confidentiality statute. The official, Frank Bailey, was Gov. Sarah Palin’s first Director of Boards and Commissions; he left in August of 2008, during the Troopergate controversy.
The emails are searchable through a site maintained by Crivella West.
