What a terrible time for the Oregon Department of Human Services to conceal what it’s doing to improve foster care.

The state has paid out millions in settlements for failing to ensure the children in its care were safe. An Oregon Secretary Of State audit found in January that DHS has been “slow, indecisive, and inadequate” in fixing recurring problems in the foster care system.

To its credit, DHS pledged to address all 24 of the audit’s recommendations for improvement. The agency wrote it would cultivate the “need for transparency, strong and open communication.” DHS published on its website some updates on its progress, though it didn’t address all 24.

When we asked for a more comprehensive update in mid-April, DHS was slow and inadequate. DHS staff went to considerable effort to write a more comprehensive memo for The Bulletin to update the public about its progress. But DHS did not release it. To get it, we had to compel its release under state public records law. That’s the DHS idea of transparency?

Internal DHS emails show the agency’s leadership was more worried about how the information might be seen than being open with the public about what it was doing. Jay Remy, who was the head of public information at DHS at the time, wrote on May 9 he was worried releasing a response might surprise Gov. Kate Brown’s office or the Secretary of State’s Office. He advocated delay.

Jeannine Beatrice, chief of staff at DHS, responded: “If we push it off, we need to get something on line that shows progress  …  as we promised in many communications that we would be transparent going forward.”

“I agree,” replied DHS Director Fariborz Pakseresht.

Remy then added in an email on May 10 that Kate Kondayen, who worked in Gov. Kate Brown’s office, wanted to hold off releasing anything and roll it into a media campaign. That’s not transparency; that’s control.

DHS never told us why it would not give us a comprehensive update. We got tired of waiting and made a public records request on May 21 for emails related to our request for information. That’s how we got those internal emails and the release of the memo. (You can see a version of that memo on our website.)

DHS didn’t even get our public records request right. Under state law, DHS had 15 days to give us a reasonable estimate about when our records request would be completed. We never got that.

The episode with DHS is a good lesson in why Oregon needs strong public records laws. All the government talk of transparency can be a charade.