Citing security, Sedgwick County takes copies of its contracts offline

Sedgwick County removed copies of its approved contracts with businesses and other governments off its website.

The county said the move was to improve financial security. It lost more than $566,000 to fraudulent activity last fall.

The county’s website used to have PDFs of contracts on its website, along with information about the contract’s name, vendor, dollar amount and duration. But those files have since been removed.

“PDFs of the documents were removed in a continued effort to find the appropriate balance between transparency and security for the organization,” said Kate Flavin, the county’s public information officer, in an email.

Copies of contracts are still available to people who file a request under the Kansas Open Records Act.

Flavin said some contracts include information about the size, frequency and timing of payments made by the county.

“It still has the basic information up, but it doesn’t have the details,” Flavin said.

The Vulnerability Workings Group, a group of county staffers that began meeting in December, made the recommendation.

The county also removed an electronic payment form from the county’s website in January. That document had been used to process vendor payments through the Automated Clearing House, an electronic network for financial transactions.

A Georgia man has been charged with wire fraud; he is accused of asking the county to change a vendor’s banking information, then sending a form by email to Sedgwick County’s finance department. The charge comes after the diversion of $566,088.90 that was meant for Wichita construction company Cornejo and Sons for a preventative road maintenance project.

Some state auditors and entities affected by fraud have noted that online criminals can exploit information about contracts and contractors listed in the public domain.

This story was originally published March 10, 2017 at 2:11 PM with the headline "Citing security, Sedgwick County takes copies of its contracts offline."