Editor’s note: Paul Lane is a staff reporter with the Union-Sun’s sister paper, the Niagara Gazette. He was not involved in the original reporting of city workers’ salaries.



Unionized municipal workers in the city are upset that a Freedom of Information request the city clerk recently fulfilled included employees’ Social Security numbers.

For a story that ran March 14 on city workers’ salaries, the Union-Sun & Journal received a list of city employee pay and benefits. Also accidentally included in the documents sent to the newspaper by City Clerk Richard Mullaney were the workers’ Social Security numbers.

The City of Lockport Union Partnership, a group consisting of five city unions — the police Hickory Club, CSEA, City of Lockport Department Heads Association, Lockport Professional Firefighters Association and AFSCME — sent a press release Tuesday afternoon critical of the city for making the mistake and the paper for not returning the documents, citing identity theft concerns.

“Over the past week or so, a local newspaper chose a convenient target — the employees of the City of Lockport — upon which to lay blame for the taxes we all pay. In its zeal to assist the newspaper, the leadership of the city quickly provided the salary, pension, health care costs and ... the Social Security numbers for all city employees,” the unions’ release said. “The reporter who received the information and had it in her possession for an estimated three days failed ethically by not returning the information immediately.”

Tim Marren, the US&J;’s managing editor, said the reporter who wrote the story, Joyce Miles, didn’t realize that Social Security numbers were on the documents until after the story ran, and that the paper hadn’t asked for those numbers in its Freedom of Information request. The numbers were blacked out after Mullaney notified Miles of the error, Marren said, and the documents were then shredded at the request of City Attorney John Ottaviano.

Todd Chenez, president of the police Hickory Club union, has no issue with the salaries being printed. His only concern is in keeping his union members safe — especially in light of their potentially hazardous work.

“It’s public record,” said Chenez, speaking only on behalf of the Hickory Club, of the salaries. “We work hard. Every single person in this department earns what they get ... What I do have a little bit of a problem with is sensitive information being given that shouldn’t be given. Was it a mistake? I hope that it was, and I’m sure that it was.”

Chenez hopes that bringing this matter to light will prevent future accidents like this from occurring.

“I’m not asking for anyone’s head,” he said. “I just want to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”

The city’s fire union head also took issue with Mullaney’s error.

“When a mistake happens, there always seems to be ... at least from a firefighter’s point of view, some type of repercussion that comes out of it,” said Sam Oakes, president of the firefighters association. “A mistake was made, and he needs to be held responsible. What action is taken, I guess, is up to the mayor.”

Lockport Mayor Michael Tucker said no disciplinary action would be taken.

“It was human error,” he said. “It’s an unfortunate thing. I don’t take it lightly ... We certainly apologize for that.”

Tuesday afternoon, Ottaviano drew up an affidavit for Miles to sign to reaffirm she did nothing with the numbers but destroy them upon realizing what they were. A letter was also sent to all city employees by his office telling them about a violation of privacy, a move Oakes agrees with, considering some retirees whose information was included in the documents might not live in town and might not know what’s going on.

The city’s health care provider is also removing employees’ Social Security numbers from all documentation, Tucker said. Instead, workers will be assigned identification numbers that will only be known to the provider so as to further protect their identities, he said. Social Security numbers will no longer be listed on the public documents.

“If this would happen again ... it would simply be the ID number on the paperwork,” Tucker said.

All things considered, Ottaviano was satisfied with the response to the situation.

“That’s the best I could do given the circumstances,” he said.

He’s glad that action was taken, but Chenez disagrees with any people who have said that the matter is incidental.

“If it’s not that big a deal, give me your name, your address and your Social Security number, and I’ll put it on a desk and I’ll leave it there for a few days,” he said.

Contact reporter Paul Lane at 282-2311, ext. 2251.