Untitled
| Tracking # |
C187951 |
| Submitted | July 6, 2022 |
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Communications
From: Alice Hines
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the New Jersey Open Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:
I am requesting records relating to the procurement of drug-testing services by New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency from the private VA-based company Averhealth (also dba Avertest and dba Global Drug Testing Services ) between 1/1/2021 and 7/6/2022.
Specifically, I would like the following records:
-Communications and emails (including attachments) from Averhealth executives Jason Herzog, Jacquie Sheehey, or Dominique Delagnes to Child Welfare or court employees describing or marketing their services
-Transcripts and records of internal meetings between child welfare or court staff evaluating Averhealth’s services
-Communications and emails (including attachments) between child welfare or court staff discussing Averhealth's services (cost, quality, reputation, frequency of testing, and cut-off levels)
-Communications and emails (including attachments) between child welfare or court staff discussing or debating what cutoff levels to use for Averhealth testing
-Cutoff levels currently being used by NJ DCF and Averhealth for drug testing families
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes. I am a journalist and this report is focused on understanding the best practices for drug testing, and this report will help to inform the public on these practices. I would also like to request a waiver of all fees as the disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest and c contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of the drug testing and drug testing reliability.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 7 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Alice Hines
From: Department of Children and Families
Good Afternoon Ms. Hines,
The New Jersey Department of Children and Families is in receipt of the following OPRA request:
I am requesting records relating to the procurement of drug-testing services by New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency from the private VA-based company Averhealth (also dba Avertest and dba Global Drug Testing Services ) between 1/1/2021 and 7/6/2022. Specifically, I would like the following records:
-Communications and emails (including attachments) from Averhealth executives Jason Herzog, Jacquie Sheehey, or Dominique Delagnes to Child Welfare or court employees describing or marketing their services
-Transcripts and records of internal meetings between child welfare or court staff evaluating Averhealth's services
-Communications and emails (including attachments) between child welfare or court staff discussing Averhealth's services (cost, quality, reputation, frequency of testing, and cut-off levels)
-Communications and emails (including attachments) between child welfare or court staff discussing or debating what cutoff levels to use for Averhealth testing
-Cutoff levels currently being used by NJ DCF and Averhealth for drug testing families
Please be advised that your requests for "communications and emails (including attachments) between child welfare or court staff discussing Averhealth's services (cost, quality, reputation, frequency of testing, and cut-off levels)" and "communications and emails (including attachments) between child welfare or court staff discussing or debating what cutoff levels to use for Averhealth testing"
are overbroad. Pursuant to Elcavage v. West Milford Twp., GRC Complaint No. 2009-07 (April 2010), requestors seeking correspondence must provide content or subject, date or range of dates, and sender and/or recipient. Please provide clarification as to senders and recipients of the email correspondence that you seek on or before 7/15/22 so that we may properly respond to your request.
Please also accept this email as notification that a two-week extension is necessary to fulfill this request. The new due date for our response will be Friday 7/29/22.
Thank you.
Brittany Competello, Esq.
Legal Specialist / Ethics Liaison Officer / OPRA Custodian
Office of Legal Affairs
Department of Children and Families
Office: 609-888-7780
Cell: 201-207-6658
This E-mail, including any attachments, may be intended solely for the personal and confidential use of the sender and recipient(s) named above. This message may include advisory, consultative and/or deliberative material and, as such, would be privileged and confidential and not a public document. If you have received this e-mail in error, you must not review, transmit, convert to hard copy, copy, use or disseminate this e-mail or any attachments to it and you must delete this message. You are requested to notify the sender by return e-mail.
From: Department of Children and Families
Good Morning Ms. Hines,
I apologize, but in addition to the clarifications I requested on Tuesday 7/12/22, I also need clarification for the provision "Communications and emails (including attachments) from Averhealth executives Jason Herzog, Jacquie Sheehey, or Dominique Delagnes to Child Welfare or court employees describing or marketing their services" regarding recipients. As written, this provision is also overbroad, as we have over 6000 employees at DCF. Please advise what recipients you are looking for. Thank you.
Brittany
Brittany Competello, Esq.
Legal Specialist / Ethics Liaison Officer / OPRA Custodian
Office of Legal Affairs
Department of Children and Families
Office: 609-888-7780
Cell: 201-207-6658
From: Department of Children and Families
Good morning Ms. Hines,
I am writing to follow up on my request for clarifying information regarding the emails you seek. Please see my two emails below from July 12 and July 14 with the specifics of my requests for clarification. I am going to keep this OPRA request open on an extension for an additional two weeks, to Friday August 12, 2022, in order for us to ensure we have the available information for some of the other parts of your request, and also to provide you additional time to respond to my request for clarification.
Please provide your clarification on my email requests by Friday August 5, 2022, in order to give us time to complete the inquiry.
Thank you.
Brittany Competello, Esq.
Legal Specialist / Ethics Liaison Officer / OPRA Custodian
Office of Legal Affairs
Department of Children and Families
Office: 609-888-7780
Cell: 201-207-6658
From: Alice Hines
Dear Brittany,
Thanks for responding to my request. Let's start by clarifying the following provision:
"-Communications and emails (including attachments) from Averhealth executives Jason Herzog, Jacquie Sheehey, or Dominique Delagnes to Child Welfare or court employees describing or marketing their services."
To clarify, I am seeking communications between 1/1/2021 and 7/6/2022 involving the above individuals as either senders or recipients (to make your search easier, the emails of the individuals in question are jsheehey@averhealth.com, ddelagnes@averhealth.com, and jherzog@averhealth.com). The content or subject of the discussion would be Averhealth's drug testing technology and its use by NJ DCF. Pursuant to Elcavage v. West Milford Twp., GRC Complaint No. 2009-07 (April 2010), you should now have all the information you need to fulfill that provision.
Please fulfill any other provisions which are possible at this time given the information you have. The remainder I will refile at a later date.
Alice
From: Department of Children and Families
Good Afternoon Ms. Hines,
Thank you for your response. I am concerned that the request as written is still overly broad and burdensome on the agency, as it will require a search of every employee’s emailbox for any emails to or from those three specific Averhealth employees. As we have over 6000 employees here at DCF, that is a significant undertaking that will cause a substantial disruption to the agency’s operations. Are there any specific DCF employees that you are particularly interested in, or any other parameters we can use regarding which employees we are looking for, so we can narrow this search? Please advise.
As we are still in discussions about the scope of the request, I will keep this OPRA request open and provide an updated timeframe for response once I hear from you.
Thank you and have a great weekend.
Brittany Competello, Esq.
Legal Specialist / Ethics Liaison Officer / OPRA Custodian
Office of Legal Affairs
Department of Children and Families
Office: 609-888-7780
Cell: 201-207-6658
-
~WRD0003
From: Alice Hines
Hi Brittany,
I only need to search the emails of DCF employees in the central administration office in Trenton: i.e., those who could plausibly be ii charge of managing, commissioning, and evaluating the contract with Averhealth.
I do not need to search the emails of anyone in the 46 local DCF offices or any of the IAIU units.
That should narrow it down quite a bit.
I cannot give you specific names within DCF's central office as I do not know who is in charge of managing and/or evaluating the Averhealth contract (more info about the contract here:https://www.nj.gov/oag/advocacy_institute/2022-0425_Substance-Use-Testing-(DCF).pdf). That information isn't available anywhere online. If you are able to find the names of the contract administrators for me, then I could narrow it down even further.
Best,
Alice
From: Department of Children and Families
Good afternoon Ms. Hines,
The New Jersey Department of Children and Families received the following OPRA request on 7/6/22:
I am requesting records relating to the procurement of drug-testing services by New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency from the private VA-based company Averhealth (also dba Avertest and dba Global Drug Testing Services ) between 1/1/2021 and 7/6/2022. Specifically, I would like the following records:
1. Communications and emails (including attachments) from Averhealth executives Jason Herzog, Jacquie Sheehey, or Dominique Delagnes to Child Welfare or court employees describing or marketing their services
2. Transcripts and records of internal meetings between child welfare or court staff evaluating Averhealth's services
3. Communications and emails (including attachments) between child welfare or court staff discussing Averhealth's services (cost, quality, reputation, frequency of testing, and cut-off levels)
4. Communications and emails (including attachments) between child welfare or court staff discussing or debating what cutoff levels to use for Averhealth testing
5. Cutoff levels currently being used by NJ DCF and Averhealth for drug testing families
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