RDU board talks policy and personnel in closed session

Jim Tatum, attorney for the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority, says there’s a good reason the airport board is meeting behind closed doors today.

The board and airport director John Brantley are receiving a report from a consultant, Capital Associated Industries Inc., on a five-month “human resources study” of RDU.

The report is a mix of general policy discussion (which is supposed to be discussed in the open, according to North Carolina’s open meetings law) and job-performance analysis regarding specific airport employees (which legally can be discussed in private), Tatum said before the meeting started this afternoon.

“They’ve been investigating personnel policies and practices and evaluating what the airport can do to improve its human resources administration. These folks have been doing a lot of research. They have interviewed a large number of airport employees and done a survey of opinoins and attitudes and ideas throughout the organization, from top to bottom,” Tatum said.

So why did the consultant recommend, and Tatum agree, that the report should not be discussed in public?

“The report does have information specific to individuals in key roles at the airport, and their performance and decision-making. I concurred that [the meeting] should be closed.

“They didn’t think they could productively give the report without getting into areas that compromise individual personnel information. I was told there was no way to separate it into two parts,” Tatum said.

State law does allow public board to meet privately for several reasons, including: “to consider the qualifications, competence, performance, character, fitness ... of an individual public officer or employee. General personnel policy issues may not be considered in a closed session.”

As a practical matter, Tatum said, closed meetings sometimes include a mix of public and private information discussed together in context.

Tatum said if the consultant’s report and today’s meeting both include a mix of general personnel policy and individual personnel performance, he would make public the portions of both — the report and detailed minutes from the meeting — that should not be kept secret under North Carolina’s open government laws.