WOTC database 08/04/21 (Department of Labor and Training)
It is a clone of this request.
| Multi Request | WOTC database 08/04/21 |
| Submitted | Aug. 4, 2021 |
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Communications
From: Emily Corwin
Attention: Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) Unit
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Rhode Island Access to Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:
1) All reports regarding Work Opportunity Tax Credits certified in 2019 and 2020 provided to the US Department of Labor, including forms 9058.
2) Any database tracking Work Opportunity Tax Credit certifications which is created or maintained by your department or by any third party vendor under contract with your department, preferably in .csv or .xlsx format. If it is easier, the database can be limited to the calendar or fiscal years ending in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
3) The most recent of any contracts with third party vendors to track WOTC certifications.
My goal is to ascertain which businesses and industries are applying for and/or receiving Work Opportunity Tax Credits, for which categories of employees and which occupations. If a conversation could help narrow or expedite the completion of this request, I am available at 802 233 4992 and emily_corwin@harvard.edu.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
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 10 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Emily Corwin
From: Department of Labor and Training
Good afternoon,
Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training is in receipt of your APRA request. In order to best respond with the most relevant documentation, clarification is needed as to the specifics of Request #2. See below:
1. Specifically what data elements are you requesting?
1. Please note that year 2018 documents are in a physical form and are not electronic. In addition to the time allotted for review of documents before they are dispersed, there will be costs incurred for search and retrieval time. Do you still want DLT to provide 2018 information?
1. What date are you requesting that DLT use in order to organize the data requested? Are you requesting by application date or by certification date? Please note that if you are requesting by application date, it is easier for the agency, since 2018 documents are in the physical form.
Please note that the time DLT has to respond to this request is tolled pending your response to this email.
Thank you,
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala, Esq.
Legal Counsel
Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
1511 Pontiac Avenue, Building 72-3
Cranston, RI 02920
401-462-8843 (phone)
401-462-8884 (fax)
[DLT]
The information transmitted by this email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed. This email may contain proprietary, business-confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, be aware that any use, review, retransmission, distribution, reproduction or any action taken in reliance upon this message is strictly prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
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From: Emily Corwin
Hi Siobhan,
Thanks for your email and for the additional context. Please amend my request to seek only 2019 and 2020 data. Please use application date rather than certification date.
The information I'm seeking is as follows, although I'm not certain if you track items 5 and 6, and can do without them if necessary:
1. The names of businesses seeking WOTC certification
2. The number of certifications sought by each business
3. What kinds of wages the potentially WOTC-eligible employees would be earning
4. Which target groups are being served by the credits
5. What kind of work the WOTC-eligible employee was hired to do
6. Certification status (insofar as the state has authority. I am aware the feds make the final determination about eligibility and do not expect you to have that data).
An ideal layout might be a spreadsheet with rows for each credit sought. In this scenario, there could be multiple lines for each business:
Business name | Wage or wage category | Target group | Job position | Denied or approved
An alternative, less desirable but still helpful layout might have a single row for each business, with other information in counts, such as:
Business name | Count of credits sought and/or approved | Counts for each wage category | Counts for each target group category | Counts for each type of position
Please let me know if I can provide any other assistance. Many thanks!
Emily
From: Department of Labor and Training
Thank you for your response, I will be in touch.
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala, Esq.
Legal Counsel
Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
1511 Pontiac Avenue, Building 72-3
Cranston, RI 02920
401-462-8843 (phone)
401-462-8884 (fax)
[DLT]
The information transmitted by this email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed. This email may contain proprietary, business-confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, be aware that any use, review, retransmission, distribution, reproduction or any action taken in reliance upon this message is strictly prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
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From: Department of Labor and Training
Ok. Thank you for letting me know.
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala, Esq.
Legal Counsel
RI Department of Labor & Training
1511 Pontiac Avenue, Building 72-3
Cranston, RI 02920
401-462-8843(phone)
401-462-8884 (fax)
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From: Department of Labor and Training
Good morning,
As a follow up to your fax received yesterday, you can expect further communication from me on or before August 23, 2021, which would be the 10th business day after receiving your Access to Public Records request on August 6th, see attached.
Thank you,
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala, Esq.
Legal Counsel
Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
1511 Pontiac Avenue, Building 72-3
Cranston, RI 02920
401-462-8843 (phone)
401-462-8884 (fax)
[DLT]
The information transmitted by this email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed. This email may contain proprietary, business-confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, be aware that any use, review, retransmission, distribution, reproduction or any action taken in reliance upon this message is strictly prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
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From:
Hi again Siobhan,
Just wanted to let you know the muckrock system has accidentally sent over the same APRA request twice. I’ve closed the duplicate.
Best,
Emily
--
Emily Corwin
Nieman/Abrams Fellow 2020-2022<https://nieman.harvard.edu/news/2020/07/nieman-foundation-for-journalism-announces-2021-fellows/>
twitter: @emilycorwin<https://twitter.com/emilycorwin>
phone: 802 233 4992
This email address will be discontinued at the conclusion of my fellowship in March 2022. To reach me by email after that, use: emilycorwin@gmail.com.
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From: Department of Labor and Training
Good afternoon,
Attached please find the response to your APRA Request #1 for all reports regarding Work Opportunity Tax Credits certified in 2019 and 2020 provided to the US Department of Labor. Please note that the PDF supplied is redacted in accordance with the personal privacy interest associated with R.I. General Law § 38-2-2(A)(I)(b).
There will be a separate email in response to Request #2 and
DLT does not have anything responsive to your APRA Request #3 because third party vendors were not used to track WOTC certifications.
Thank you,
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala, Esq.
Legal Counsel
Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
1511 Pontiac Avenue, Building 72-3
Cranston, RI 02920
401-462-8843 (phone)
401-462-8884 (fax)
[DLT]
The information transmitted by this email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed. This email may contain proprietary, business-confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, be aware that any use, review, retransmission, distribution, reproduction or any action taken in reliance upon this message is strictly prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
From: Department of Labor and Training
Attached please find in XLSX format the responsive document to your Amended request for information concerning businesses and industries that have applied for/ receiving Work Opportunity Tax Credits the years 2019 and 2020.
This concludes DLT's response, and this request is now considered closed.
Thank you,
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala, Esq.
Legal Counsel
Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
1511 Pontiac Avenue, Building 72-3
Cranston, RI 02920
401-462-8843 (phone)
401-462-8884 (fax)
[DLT]
The information transmitted by this email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed. This email may contain proprietary, business-confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, be aware that any use, review, retransmission, distribution, reproduction or any action taken in reliance upon this message is strictly prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
From:
Hi Siobhan,
Thank you so much for your attention and speed with this.
Have a great weekend –
Emily
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From: Department of Labor and Training
Hi again Siobhan,
I am wondering if someone at your department could clarify for me if there is any particular process by which an employee who qualifies for a WOTC under multiple target groups gets assigned one or the other in the system/data. For example, would someone who is both an ex-felon AND a SNAP recipient always show up in this data as a SNAP recipient?
Thanks!
Emily Corwin
Nieman/Abrams Fellow 2020-2022<https://nieman.harvard.edu/news/2020/07/nieman-foundation-for-journalism-announces-2021-fellows/>
twitter: @emilycorwin<https://twitter.com/emilycorwin>
phone: 802 233 4992
This email address will be discontinued at the conclusion of my fellowship in March 2022. To reach me by email after that, use: emilycorwin@gmail.com.
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From: Department of Labor and Training
Apologies for not consolidating these two questions. I'm also wondering if you can confirm for me whether the data you've shared regarding businesses applying for WOTCs are all Rhode Island employees. (I want to confirm that national companies aren't just dumping all of their WOTC applications on all of the states, requiring you folks to search out the RI-relevant ones).
Thanks!
Emily
Emily Corwin
Nieman/Abrams Fellow 2020-2022<https://nieman.harvard.edu/news/2020/07/nieman-foundation-for-journalism-announces-2021-fellows/>
twitter: @emilycorwin<https://twitter.com/emilycorwin>
phone: 802 233 4992
This email address will be discontinued at the conclusion of my fellowship in March 2022. To reach me by email after that, use: emilycorwin@gmail.com.
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From: Emily Corwin
Hi Siobhan,
First of all, I want to acknowledge and thank you for being the first of all 50 states to respond to and fulfill this particular records request. Having your .xlsx available as a sample helped me communicate with other states what I was looking for and was quite helpful as I collected data from across the country.
I did recently discover that I didn't receive the 2018 data from Rhode Island. The oversight was easy for both of us to miss, as I only requested two years of records in item #1 (the quarterly aggregate reports) but 3 years of records in item #2 (the dataset).
Would you be able to send over either a supplement of the data you sent, with 2018 data, or re-send the entire dataset with 2018, 2019 and 2020?
Many thanks again,
Emily Corwin
802 233 4992
From: Department of Labor and Training
Good afternoon,
You did not receive 2018 information from DLT because you amended your request to only include 2019 and 2020 information after it was explained to you the difficulty in providing 2018 information. Please see attached.
Thank you,
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala, Esq.
Legal Counsel
Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
1511 Pontiac Avenue, Building 72-3
Cranston, RI 02920
401-462-8843 (phone)
401-462-8884 (fax)
[DLT]
The information transmitted by this email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed. This email may contain proprietary, business-confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, be aware that any use, review, retransmission, distribution, reproduction or any action taken in reliance upon this message is strictly prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
From: Department of Labor and Training
Hi Siobhan –
Of course! I forgot about the 2018 data being on paper and not digital.
As I’ve proceeded with my work (and received 3 years of data from other states) I am realizing that the 2018 data would, in fact, be quite helpful to have. I wonder what state it is in and what kind of lift it would take to get it to me? Are we talking a painstaking redaction process costing thousands of dollars of employee time? Or is it more like… quickly blacking out entire fields for a smaller fee?
Happy to chat by phone – I left you a voicemail as well, but figured with WFH etc it’s worth it to double up.
802 233 4992.
Best,
Emily
--
Emily Corwin
Nieman/Abrams Fellow 2020-2022<https://nieman.harvard.edu/news/2020/07/nieman-foundation-for-journalism-announces-2021-fellows/>
Twitter: @emilycorwin<https://twitter.com/emilycorwin>
Cell, Signal, WhatsApp: +1 802 233 4992
This email address will be discontinued at the conclusion of my fellowship in March 2022. To reach me by email after that, use: emilycorwin@gmail.com.
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From: Department of Labor and Training
Good morning,
DLT will be meeting internally to discuss the lift, and I will touch base no later than close of business Wednesday to determine if this is something you would like to pursue.
Thank you,
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala
Siobhan L. Stephens-Catala, Esq.
Legal Counsel
Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
1511 Pontiac Avenue, Building 72-3
Cranston, RI 02920
401-462-8843 (phone)
401-462-8884 (fax)
[DLT]
The information transmitted by this email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed. This email may contain proprietary, business-confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, be aware that any use, review, retransmission, distribution, reproduction or any action taken in reliance upon this message is strictly prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers.
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