The City of Texarkana, Texas responded to a request for public records made on April 16, 2015 concerning the Kress Building at 116 W. Broad by providing the requestor with two discs of information on Tuesday, April 28, 2015. Within the records provided, personal information of current city employees, retired employees and Morris Sheppard Credit Union members was released. This information includes confidential identifiers of employees, their spouses, and dependents, such as name, date of birth, home address, social security numbers, civil service rank, salary data, and health insurance deductions.
The City of Texarkana, Texas deeply regrets the error of releasing this information, has contained the information breach to one unauthorized individual, and is implementing policy and revising procedures to ensure that this will not happen again.
The original information requested was concerning the Kress Building located at 116 West Broad Street, Texarkana, Texas, which is a property of interest because of recent city council discussions. While searching for documents related to this property, three search terms were used: “Kress”, “116 Broad”, and “116 W. Broad”. Those search terms produced information that was sensitive in nature and should have been redacted from the fulfilled public records request.
Due to the excellent working relationship Ward 6 Councilman Josh Davis has with constituents, and because of his diligence in this issue, the discs have been returned to city officials. The city has ascertained that copies were not made of the personal information received. In any case, employees, retirees, and credit union members are urged to take extra steps to safeguard identifying details and financial data.
All information regarding this issue is reported in this release, and no further information will be made available.
