Thursday, February 11, 2016

Senate Approves Overhaul Of Massachusetts Public Records Law

Massachusetts Senate passes public records reform

 
on February 04, 2016 at 4:20 PM, updated February 04, 2016 at 4:24 PM
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The Massachusetts Senate on Thursday passed an overhaul of the state's public records law unanimously after several hours of debate.

"This bill strengthens our public records law to improve access and make the process of requesting records simple, clear and fair," said State Sen. Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Massachusetts' public records law has not been updated since 1973. It is notoriously weak, with public agencies routinely ignoring requests or charging large amounts of money to fulfill a request.
The House passed a public records reform bill in November, and the Senate released its own version of the bill last week. The bill will now go to a committee of House-Senate negotiators to hammer out a final compromise.

The bill has drawn significant attention from open government groups, who advocate for more transparent government, but also from municipalities worried about the burden the law will place on city and town workers.

State Sen. Joan Lovely, D-Salem, said the bill "strikes the right balance to make sure cities, towns and public entities have the time they need to produce public records, but make sure there are not unnecessary barriers to access."

The bill would change the current 10-day time frame for responding to a request to 15 days and would give municipalities the ability to ask for an extension.

It requires that electronic records be provided electronically. It requires municipalities to designate a particular point person for records requests. It sets fee guidelines for copies and labor.

If a court finds that a public agency, acting in bad faith, denied access to records, the bill would let a judge award the requester attorneys' fees and impose a penalty on the public entity. The penalty fee would go to a fund dedicated to helping municipalities improve their information technology.

"The bill ... moves our public records law into the 21st century," Spilka said.

State Sen. Jason Lewis, D-Winchester, noted that the fee limits - 5 cents a page down from 20 to 50 cents per page, and $25 an hour for labor - are particularly important, in light of several egregious cases. In one, the state police asked the Boston Globe to pay $40,000 for a spreadsheet containing a list of previous public records requests. A Somerville news blog was charged $200,000 for information from the city about parking tickets and citizen complaints.


Lawmakers debated around 50 amendments throughout the afternoon. Among those that were adopted were amendments making the MBTA pension fund subject to the public records law; requiring notification within 10 days when a record is being withheld; requiring electronic submission of public documents to an agency; and establishing guidelines for the physical storage of public records.

Senators rejected proposals to require the Legislature to appropriate money for small towns to pay a public records officer; to cap the fees entirely rather than allowing an approval process for higher fees; to allow attorneys' fees when records are turned over on the eve of a trial; and to award the government attorneys' fees from requesters.

Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said currently, Massachusetts is one of only three states that do not award attorney's fees when government ignores a public records request.
"Absent any enforcement mechanism whatsoever, the public records law in Massachusetts is meaningless," Rose said. The bill, she said, provides an enforcement mechanism.

 

Senate Approves Overhaul Of Massachusetts Public Records Law

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