Washington Police Reciprocal Certifications 2023-5-9

Dear Sam Stecklow:
Thank you for your interest in public records of WSCJTC. Your request has been received and is being processed in accordance with the State of Washington Public Records Act, Chapter 42.56 RCW. Your request was received in this office on 5/9/2023 and given the reference number R000784-050923 for tracking purposes. Records Requested: To Whom It May Concern:

This is a public records request made via MuckRock under the Vermont Public Records Act, seeking records related to law enforcement officer certification in this state.

This request is brought by Big Local News along with a collaboration of news organizations, including ABC News, KQED, MuckRock, the Invisible Institute and other news organizations. Big Local News is a program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative and helps journalists collect, process and analyze public data.

We request any spreadsheets, logs, data, or other similar documents maintained by WCJTC sufficient to show the following information regarding law enforcement officers who receive reciprocal certifications in Washington due to their previous certification in other states. Specifically, please provide as many of the following data points as are maintained:

- Unique ID
- Name
- Previous state that the officer was previously certified by
- Date of Washington certification

If your certification system contains data elements not listed above, please include them in the response, provided they are releasable under the law. On the other hand, we recognize some of the information we are asking for may not be tracked by your system. If that is the case, we are willing to accept as many of the data elements as your agency maintains. If some records are more readily available, we are happy to receive partial information as soon as possible while the remaining request is processed.

In addition to the data elements listed, we request documentation necessary to understand and interpret the data, including but not limited to record layouts, data dictionaries, code sheets, lookup tables, etc.

Our preference is to receive structured data provided in a machine-readable text file, such as delimited or fixed-width formats. We can also handle a variety of other data formats including SQL databases, Excel workbooks and MS Access. If there are additional formats your agency would prefer to provide, please let us know.

We are seeking this information as a news media organization on a matter of public interest concerning the conduct of government. As such, we ask for a waiver of all fees, if allowed under state law. If fees are necessary to reimburse the agency for actual costs, we agree to pay up to $100. If costs exceed that amount, please let us know before fulfilling the request.

Please send clarifications and questions via electronic communication at any time. Thank you very much for your time and attention to this request.

Sam Stecklow
Invisible Institute

Upload documents directly: https://www.muckrock.com/
Your request will be forwarded to the relevant department(s) to locate the information you seek and to determine the volume and any costs associated with satisfying your request. You will be contacted within 5 business days with the availability and/or provided with copies of the records in question.

You can monitor the progress of your request at the link below and you'll receive an email when your request has been completed.

Be aware that if you do not download your provided records or installment of records within 30 days after the WSCJTC provided them, the WSCJTC will inform you about the abandonment of your request and close your record request per WAC 139-02-090(10).
WSCJTC

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RE: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST of May 09, 2023, Reference # R000784-050923.
Dear Sam Stecklow,
The WSCJTC received a public information request from you on May 09, 2023. Your request mentioned:
“To Whom It May Concern:

This is a public records request made via MuckRock under the Vermont Public Records Act, seeking records related to law enforcement officer certification in this state.

This request is brought by Big Local News along with a collaboration of news organizations, including ABC News, KQED, MuckRock, the Invisible Institute and other news organizations. Big Local News is a program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative and helps journalists collect, process and analyze public data.

We request any spreadsheets, logs, data, or other similar documents maintained by WCJTC sufficient to show the following information regarding law enforcement officers who receive reciprocal certifications in Washington due to their previous certification in other states. Specifically, please provide as many of the following data points as are maintained:

- Unique ID
- Name
- Previous state that the officer was previously certified by
- Date of Washington certification

If your certification system contains data elements not listed above, please include them in the response, provided they are releasable under the law. On the other hand, we recognize some of the information we are asking for may not be tracked by your system. If that is the case, we are willing to accept as many of the data elements as your agency maintains. If some records are more readily available, we are happy to receive partial information as soon as possible while the remaining request is processed.

In addition to the data elements listed, we request documentation necessary to understand and interpret the data, including but not limited to record layouts, data dictionaries, code sheets, lookup tables, etc.

Our preference is to receive structured data provided in a machine-readable text file, such as delimited or fixed-width formats. We can also handle a variety of other data formats including SQL databases, Excel workbooks and MS Access. If there are additional formats your agency would prefer to provide, please let us know.

We are seeking this information as a news media organization on a matter of public interest concerning the conduct of government. As such, we ask for a waiver of all fees, if allowed under state law. If fees are necessary to reimburse the agency for actual costs, we agree to pay up to $100. If costs exceed that amount, please let us know before fulfilling the request.

Please send clarifications and questions via electronic communication at any time. Thank you very much for your time and attention to this request.

Sam Stecklow
Invisible Institute

Upload documents directly: https://www.muckrock.com/
Sam, I need to address a few things to make sure we're clear on this request. I would also ask you to provide me additional guidance on what you need:
1. This request would be under the Washington State Public Records Act: RCW 42.56 (Not Vermont).
2. You're requesting records of "this state" referring the the Vermont PRA act, which I presume you mean Washington State (not Vermont).
3. You limit your request to 4 data points, and then ask for "as many data points as maintained." I would hope you wouldn't want everything in the database. It's a bunch of pointless data along with what you actually want. Just let me know what you need, I'm more than happy to provide it or let me know if we don't track it. A phone conversation would likely be appropriate to narrow your request down to appropriate columns.
4. The columns are fairly labeled fairly clearly or are able to be interpreted. We do not have a data dictionary, but I am willing to talk with you on the phone to explain the columns to you if you need clarification. Again, if you requested everything, this would take over an hour because of the bloat.
5. Your link requires a 8 digit code you did not provide. I will not be providing records via your link as I need to maintain a positive tracking of providing your records. I also have far too many requests to do special requests for requests.
6. I released a spreadsheet to you based on your listed criteria. It's minimal but it's exactly as requested.
7. The WSCJTC does not track out-of-state employment of officers and have no records related to that.
8. The spreadsheet I provided includes all profiles in our database since you didn't specific peace officer or types of certificate. I provided all certificates and profiles due to a lack of information.
That said, I released a spreadsheet to you based on your criteria. If you wish to have additional columns, please feel free to reach out with specific information. I am more than happy to assist you through the possible columns so you get what you need without the additional bloat and work on my end.
If I do not hear back from you within 2 weeks, I'll pull everything thing I can check, and it will take me additional time to processes due to the amount of personally protected information found in various columns.  Doing this work amongst the other requests I have, it will be either end of July or beginning of September before I will be able to provide it. I will schedule a date in two weeks time to allow you time to reach out to discuss or narrow your request.
Looking forward to hearing from you: 206-793-6332.
Sincerely,
Derek Zable
Records Manager
Records Division
206-793-6332

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RE: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST of May 09, 2023, Reference # R000784-050923
Hello Sam,
In a stroke of good news, I did find the columns for out-of-state lateral information. It was a under our user defined fields, which is why it was initially overlooked.  That's why they will say "UDF out of state lateral..."
Beyond that, I will try to send it to you by email. The new spreadsheet is provided to you in this platform. If you're able to respond here, then you're able to download it. Please look under the request you're responding to for attachment or records.
I will also try to email it, but additional steps when the record is already released to you is not a requirement of the PRA.
Now that I've received your clarification and found the missing information, this completes your request. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.
If you have any questions, please contact us through the Public Record Center.  Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Derek Zable
Records Manager
Records Division

Hi Sam,

I got the link to work and uploaded the document.

Enjoy and have a great weekend,
-Derek Zable
WSCJTC Records Manager