Individual emergency response records kept private in Ohio

A 1992 Ohio law that overhauled its emergency reporting system also made data on individual fire department's response times private. Response times for medical emergencies now are only reported by county.

You are far more likely to need an ambulance than a firetruck.

But Ohio won't let you see the records that show how fast the paramedics in your community respond to calls.

Since 2002, the Ohio Emergency Medical Services agency has kept track of response time for each medical emergency in the state. But the agency issues a report card only for each county, not for each fire department.

That's because state lawmakers decided to keep individual departments' records -- not just individual patients' records -- from the public eye.

More here.

FOI At Work...Online Credits

Sixteen Sacramento city firefighters were paid an extra $50,000 cumulatively for higher education credits they earned from online schools that often grant degrees with little or no course work or classroom study, a newspaper reported.

Their 5 percent raises were stopped after fire officials began investigating when a dozen more firefighters applied for the pay hikes, according to city payroll records and other documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee under the California Public Records Act.

More here.