Two SUITE9 Files Are Not
‘of or Belonging to’ DHHS,
Nebraska AG’s Office Concluded

In an Apr. 20, 2026 letter, the Nebraska attorney general’s office wrote that it believes two SUITE9 files are not public records and concluded that the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is not required to produce them under the Nebraska Public Records Statutes. DHHS’s Aug. 18, 2026 news release describes the interRAI assessments as “standardized and validated tools.” As of Nov. 2, 2026, none of the sources this edition read describes
what the two files contain.

By William Douglas Baker

Founding Editor

The Nebraska attorney general’s office concluded on Apr. 20, 2026, in a letter over the names of Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Assistant Attorney General Ryan D. Baker, that the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is not required to produce two SUITE9 files under the Nebraska Public Records Statutes. We set that letter beside DHHS’s Aug. 18, 2026 news release and beside DHHS’s Jan. 14, 2026 order, as the petition quotes it.

What the attorney general’s office wrote

The letter is addressed to Curt Safranek, who made a public records request on Feb. 4, 2026 and asked the attorney general’s office on Mar. 17, 2026 to review DHHS’s response. It quotes the statute’s definition of public records, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 84-712.01(1) (2024): records “of or belonging to this state, any county, … or any agency, branch, department, board, bureau, commission, council, subunit, or committee of any of the foregoing.” We read the letter as turning on “of or belonging to,” which its belief and its conclusion repeat.

DHHS’s interRAI Assessment Information page, as read Nov. 1, 2026, describes the interRAI ID and the interRAI ChYMH-DD as “functional needs assessments owned by the interRAI organization.” The attorney general’s office wrote that “the InterRAI products and software are merely licensed to DHHS for its use.” The letter adds that the creation of the SUITE9 documents “was not the result of any action by DHHS” and that DHHS’s rights to the SUITE9 documents are “strictly limited by its license agreement with InterRAI.” The letter concludes that “DHHS is not required to produce the SUITE9 Documents because they are not records ‘of or belonging to’ DHHS within the meaning of the NPRS,” the Nebraska Public Records Statutes.

As of Apr. 20, 2026, the letter reports, DHHS attorney Thomas Skutt said DHHS would continue to withhold items 4 and 5 of the eight records it first withheld, the two the letter calls the “SUITE9 Documents.” The letter names them SUITE9_CASEMIX_CMGDDA_G1_V1.1_P_2021-09-30 and SUITE9_SCALE_CMGDD-CY_G1_V1.1_P_2021-11-16_R and gives no description beyond their names. It says it understands that DHHS provided the six other listed records to Mr. Safranek on Apr. 17, 2026, among them item 1, “CMI_Tier_Chart,” and item 2, a pseudocode text file whose name carries the date Oct. 27, 2025.

The same letter says that after further review Mr. Skutt told the office that the four redacted pages of the “DD InterRAI Reviews” slide deck “were improperly withheld,” and it notes that DHHS’s partial denial of the request “did not contain all of the information required by the NPRS.” The letter’s conclusion also says “we find no violation of the NPRS, and we are closing this file.”

What DHHS says about the tools

DHHS’s news release of Aug. 18, 2026 states: “The interRAIs are standardized and validated tools ensuring Nebraskans objectively receive services based on an accurate review of current, point in time, behavioral and health-related needs and that appropriate funding amounts are consistently distributed to participants with similar levels of need.” The same release lists what a firm “will” do, including “Analyze existing data to determine reliability and validity of the Nebraska model.” On our reading, the release puts the tools in the present tense and an analysis of “the Nebraska model” in the future; we do not read the two as in conflict. A Nebraska Examiner story that WOWT carried on Oct. 20, 2026 reported that by the end of August DHHS reversed its decision to award the release’s evaluation contract outright and said it would enter a competitive bidding process.

That report said DHHS spokesperson Erin Maier “reaffirmed” that the interRAI assessments “are standardized and validated tools.” Her quoted words track the release’s sentence. Maier’s email, as the Examiner quoted it, says “DHHS looks forward to working with an external vendor to evaluate the first full year of data to provide any additional insight and recommendations.” The DHHS interRAI Assessment Information page, as read Nov. 1, 2026, says “The case-mix groups have been researched and tested for reliability by interRAI,” and, without naming who aligned them, “CMI scores were aligned to the other four tiers of Nebraska’s existing budget system.” The Aug. 18 release says that when DHHS began selecting the tool in 2024, it “received input and advice from the DD Advisory Committee, Olmstead Advisory Committee, and Myers and Stauffer.”

The petition, the order it quotes and the Oct. 29 order

Nicholas Bessey, the amended petition says, “is eligible for and receives services pursuant to the Developmental Disability Services (DD Services) Act.” “Nicholas has had services at the high level of care for 14 years,” said Angela Bessey, quoted in a May 8, 2026 release posted on the National Health Law Program’s site, which calls her Nicholas’ sister and guardian. As his guardian and next friend, she is the petitioner in Bessey v. Corsi et al., a suit against DHHS and two named officials in Lancaster County District Court, CI 26-441. That release says “the State determined the amount of funding Nicholas receives should be reduced by 35 percent.”

Per the petition, DHHS’s Jan. 14, 2026 order, issued after an administrative hearing, says: “DHHS showed the InterRAI is a comprehensive tool and a more accurate assessment of need than the former tool used to determine Appellant’s budget.” The petition quotes the order as next saying that “Appellant also pointed out answers within the InterRAI incorrectly scored,” followed by a list of items, and then that Appellant “did not demonstrate that a change to any of the responses on the InterRAI would affect his funding level.” The petition says the order affirmed a decision to lower his annual budget amount to “Intermediate,” a reduction from more than $194,000 to $126,437.19.

Paragraph 86 of the petition alleges that “the criteria and standards governing the Objective Assessment Process are not publicly available and were not disclosed to the Petitioner,” and that the Petitioner “cannot determine how the Respondents made the funding determination or meaningfully challenge that determination.” The respondents’ brief says “nothing in the Act requires these regulations to provide the scoring criteria, methodologies, and details governing the Objective Assessment Process.”

An order signed by District Court Judge Darla S. Ideus and stamped by the clerk on Oct. 29, 2026 states: “Respondents’ partial motion to dismiss is therefore overruled.” The same order states: “The stay granted on August 21, 2026, as to the unchallenged claims for relief is lifted.” Those are procedural steps, and we draw no conclusion from them about the petition’s allegations.

The Agentics read

We map the record, not any person or agency, to Digital Derangement Syndrome™ (DDS™), our term for systems that fail to recognize legitimate expertise. On our mapping, the fit is Decision Exclusion, one of its five clinical characteristics: the petition alleges in paragraph 86 that the criteria “are not publicly available.” The respondents’ brief says the details are “developed and implemented at the administrative level through guidance documents and assessment tool manuals.”

Where the record stops

This edition rests on the ten sources listed below. As of Nov. 2, 2026, none of the sources this edition read describes what the two SUITE9 files contain; the letter gives only their names. The attorney general’s office’s conclusion concerns the NPRS, and we report it only on those terms.

The Jan. 14, 2026 order reaches this edition only through the petition’s quotation. We did not read Exhibit A to the petition, any license agreement, the case-mix papers DHHS cites, DHHS’s Aug. 31 release or the two SUITE9 files. The Oct. 29 order says Exhibit 1 was received under seal, and we do not know what it contains. As of this writing, we do not know whether DHHS still withholds the two files. We do not know Nicholas Bessey’s funding status.

Agentics did not request comment from DHHS, the attorney general’s office or the plaintiffs. Every allegation here is attributed to the party that made it, and nothing here predicts the case’s outcome. The mapping to DDS™ is an editorial reading, not a finding about DHHS, the attorney general’s office, interRAI or any score.