A new twist on an old problem that was recently resurrected by Kentucky's Attorney General. Iowa officials argue that the state's Workforce Development Director is not the custodian of her own business related text messages.

Those messages, officials argue, must be obtain from the carrier, Verizon, which is not a public agency and which is not bound by public records retention requirements:

"'Verizon is not the lawful custodian of the text messages on Beth Townsend's cellphone,' Iowa Freedom of Information Council Executive Director Randy Evans said. 'The agency is. And Iowa Workforce Development is obligated to download those from the agency director's phone and make those that are not confidential available to the Capital Dispatch. This is no different from Iowa Workforce Development's obligation to make available copies of certain U.S. mail correspondence that lands on Ms. Townsend's desk.'

"Evans said IWD cannot shed its legal responsibility to turn over documents 'simply by saying it is the agency's "practice" to ask Verizon to provide these. The state Open Records Law trumps the policies or practices of any government agency, and compliance with this law cannot be shifted to a corporate vendor.'"

Evans is correct.