Governments fare better in providing access to public records
By Will Garbe, Dayton Daily News, Ohio | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
The audit by the
"We decided to repeat it just to see what's happened in the last 10 years -- have things gotten better?" said
The answer? Yes, but legitimate concerns still exist, Hetzel said.
"Until you really need to see a public record, you don't really understand," he said. "There's just myriad reasons why people want to see records. It's easy to say, 'That doesn't affect me,' but really it affects everyone."
Agencies subject to the in-person audits included the county commissioner office and the county seat's city hall, police department and school district. Reporters volunteering as auditors didn't identify themselves to government employees in order to ensure the same experience as a typical citizen seeking public records.
While the audit data show only a glimpse of how public entities work, the results shed light on some of the difficulties citizens and governments face when working under
In
The city recordkeeper was helpful and courteous, but said she likely would not be able to fulfill the request within a few days. The city employee requested an email address and fulfilled part of the request three weeks later.
In 2004, the same documents were made available a day after the request was made.
When asked why it took weeks to inspect records that state law says must be promptly available, city spokesman
"We have a steady influx of requests, and we work hard to honor those requests," he said. "I can't promise our work will be error-free 100 percent of the time, but we do work diligently to work within the guidelines of the law."
A newspaper analysis of the city's public information request log shows that the city received more than 580 requests in 2013, totaling more than 23,500 pages in print, or on DVD or CD. Many requests are from journalists, lawyers, insurance agents and construction companies. Others are from ordinary citizens.
Confusion, delays
In some cases, auditors reported that government employees, including school district secretaries in
"I think they looked at me with a healthy dose of skepticism," said
Eck said she was questioned about her identity and whether she had a child in a district school. When she asked how long it would take to get a response from the district, Eck said the employee "shrugged her shoulders and said, 'Without a name, I don't know.' "
That employee's questions, however, didn't factor into whether the district responded to the request, said school district treasurer
At
"I plan on meeting with all secretaries before school starts," Jarvis said. "Obviously, if I knew I had one person who was a problem I could speak with them immediately."
Jarvis said she often receives records requests and would have granted the request to view a treasurer's expense report and a copy of the budget showing the superintendent's salary.
At
Understaffed offices
At police stations, auditors asked to see incident reports filed by the previous shift of officers. In
In
That auditor's experience is not typical of service received from the department, said
In 2004,
This time, a police dispatcher said she was unable to provide incident reports from the previous shift because all persons able to assist were at the scene of a car accident. The records, she told the auditor, might not be available for several days.
"We used to have a civil employee who would deal with records requests, but we did away with that," said
Hurd said that the department is committed to fulfilling open records requests. He said the chief and another sergeant handle records during weekdays but sometimes are called to incidents, leaving the office temporarily without employees trained in records law.
Such incidents, says an expert in
"These are folks that want to reply, and in the case of police agencies, saving lives, and they know the law is changing and they don't want to get it wrong," said
"Promptly could mean hours or days," Weaver said. "Now, if everyone's back and days have gone by and there's no response, then there's a problem."
Many readily comply
At the
"We try to treat everyone the same who asks, and we try to get them in a timely manner," Dodson said, adding that her office usually receives fewer than 15 requests a year. "I just think it's all public knowledge. It's the law and that's the way it should be treated."
Under a different treasurer a decade earlier, school officials denied one record and released another, but were so suspicious of the requester that they called
In city halls, including
At the county level, government recordkeepers in county commissioners' offices readily provided copies of the most recent commission meeting minutes, auditors from
Challenges remain
Weaver, the former assistant attorney general, said he trains about 1,500 government employees a year and has worked on eight editions of the state's records handbook. Public employees, he said, often want to do the right thing, but don't know how.
"There's a desire to get it right," said Weaver, an attorney with the Isaac Wiles law firm. "There's a frustration with the law being so complex that it's hard to understand."
Hetzel agreed there's still confusion over what is a public record, despite improvement across the state.
"I think there's still a ways to go in understanding what records are open and what records are not open," He said. "Everything's gotten more complicated. There are court decisions all over the map about what is a public record and what isn't."
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