Personnel information

What personnel information covers

Personnel information is about the people the association employs, not about owners. Think of an on-site manager, a maintenance worker, or a bookkeeper on staff: their write-ups, pay history, health details, and insurance enrollment. It is a separate category from an owner's own violation file, which some states also withhold, but for different reasons (see Redacting records).

In Florida, personnel records, meaning disciplinary, payroll, health, and insurance information, are excluded from the official records an owner may inspect. In Texas, personnel files of association employees are treated as not being association records at all, for associations of 14 or more lots. Only these two states were verified for this exclusion in our research. Check your own state's statute and your governing documents before assuming the same rule applies where you serve.

What still has to come out

Excluding personnel files does not erase every number tied to an employee. California lets an association withhold an employee's personnel file, but not the amount it paid that person.

An association may not redact "information concerning the compensation paid to employees, vendors, or contractors," though that compensation must be organized by job title rather than by name.

Source: California Civil Code Section 5215, California Legislature

That split exists because compensation is an association expense owners are entitled to see, while health information, discipline, and insurance details are about the person, not the money.

When a request touches personnel information

Not everything the board holds on an employee is automatically a record subject to inspection in the first place.

"Not all documentation that the HOA may have constitutes a 'record' that is subject to inspection by a member."

Source: Inspection and Copying of Association Records, Tinnelly Law Group

Treat a request that touches personnel matters the same way you would treat any other records request (see Responding to records requests): read it, separate out what your state excludes, and produce the rest. When the line isn't obvious, get help before anything goes out.

"Legal counsel may need to be engaged to review specific requests and ensure that records which are not official records, such as attorney-client privileged information, private medical information, personnel records, etc., are not inadvertently produced."

Source: Best Practices for Community Associations in Records Requests, Adams and Reese LLP