Conn. Comptroller Releases Disputed Documents One Day Before Public Records Hearing
Monique Coleman receives a COVID-19 test in May 2020 at a mobile testing center in Hartford’s North End. (Tyler Russell/Connecticut Public)
A year after keeping the price of taxpayer-funded purchases out of public view in an effort to protect private business, state Comptroller Kevin Lembo has changed course and released unredacted contracts between 10 vendors and the state for COVID-19 testing.
The release came one day before Connecticut Public was set to argue for the full disclosure of the documents before a state public records panel.
In response to a Freedom of Information request in 2020, Lembo redacted portions of these contracts and refused to say how much the state was paying for each individual COVID-19 test. Lembo said the price per test was a “trade secret” and that private vendors could take out what they charge taxpayers from a public contract.
Here’s what he said at the time: “The vendors get to, under the FOI law, decide what’s [a] trade secret,” Lembo said. “They have indicated that those areas around the unit prices are proprietary.”
On Tuesday, Lembo said in an emailed statement those same private vendors gave his office permission to release full versions of the documents.