If public information were gold, some state senators would be stingy and some generous this session. Sen. Ernie Chambers would be both.

Chambers introduced two bills this week, one that would provide more access and one less.

In providing more access to information, he would make public any disciplinary action involving law enforcement officers, police, sheriff, state troopers, even state Game and Parks conservation officers.

And he would extend that to any school employee — teachers, school nurses, principals — required to have a certificate from the Nebraska Department of Education.

Law enforcement workers and teachers are public employees, Chambers said, and there is no benefit to the public to keep matters of discipline a secret.

Secrecy and accountability do not go together, he said.

“There must be openness.”

School districts and law enforcement will watch the bill closely.

Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady said his major concern would be that public disclosure of discipline would have a “chilling effect” on the willingness of supervisors to discipline an officer, for fear that intimate details of something like being late to work or other embarrassing missteps would be in the news.

“I would like the general public to be aware of and assured that misconduct by police employees is dealt with appropriately,” Casady said, “but somehow this has to be balanced against the right of a public employee doing incredibly demanding and difficult work to have some level of privacy in personnel matters.”

He said too many people perceive the police “take care of their own,” but they would be surprised at the reality of police disciplinary action, at least at LPD.

If there are departments that aren’t dealing appropriately with misconduct, the public needs to know that, he said. But this bill does little or nothing about that possibility.

On the teacher discipline side, the state and Lincoln education associations and Lincoln Public Schools officials said they could see potential problems to the bill but wanted to know more about its practical effects.

“It may be going too far, but we don’t know that,” said Arlene Rea, Lincoln Education Association president.

Nancy Biggs, LPS associate superintendent for human resources, said she didn’t know how the bill might conflict with federal law. “We are evaluating it,” she said.

LPS personnel policy says no one, except school officials carrying out their professional duties, has access to an employee’s file, and nothing in its contents can be divulged to an unauthorized person.

Another of Chambers’ bills (LB470) would take away public access to a person’s arrest records if no charges are filed, if the person completed diversion or if charges are dismissed.

Marty Conboy, Omaha city prosecutor, said for many years he has seen people who were not prosecuted or who went through diversion have those arrests made public.

State law isn’t clear on how and when arrest records fall out of the public domain, Conboy said. This law makes it clear that if charges are not filed, the information will not be public after one year from the arrest date; if diversion is completed it will not be public after two years; and if charges are filed but the case is dismissed, three years.

Conboy gives the example of a young person arrested for shoplifting and cleared before being charged, or a person arrested for sexual assault but the victim recants. “The case is over, but it’s not over for that person,” he said.

They can lose an opportunity for a job or a daycare license, he said. Some cases create great prejudice for an accused person who is never charged.

Conboy said the record would still be available for law enforcement, but not the public. The record would be available to the public if the person is being prosecuted on another charge or if he or she is an announced candidate for public office or an officeholder.

But the vast majority of the cases are for minor arrests.

“And those things are very damaging in a competitive world,” he said.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.