Published: Monday, September 20, 2010
Snohomish County wants public records relief
Snohomish County leaders want help from state lawmakers to cut down the time and expense they spend responding to requests for public records, a concern they share with government colleagues in Washington and beyond.
The county receives thousands of requests each year from individuals, neighborhood groups, attorneys and reporters. Often, county staff will compile stacks of records that sit, gathering dust, without anybody coming to pick them up.
County Council responses to public records fill four metal file drawers. There's also a cart that holds the pending requests.
“I would frankly not be surprised to find out that there is in excess of $1 million per year being spent by this county in staff time,” County Council Chairman Dave Gossett said. “The real challenge here is to comply with the legitimate need of citizens to know what their government is doing and to ask questions, with the tremendous amount of work that some of these very broad and repetitive requests create.”
The council has placed public records on a list of state legislative issues for 2011. A draft of the county's legislative agenda notes that “the current (public records) system is costly, inefficient and abused.”
In all, county government has received more than 5,300 records requests in 2010 to date. That number includes only requests tallied because staff needed significant time to search for documents, said Brian Parry, an executive director for County Executive Aaron Reardon.
The County Council is trying to decide how they'd like to see the state law change. They're discussing it with Washington State Association of Counties, WSAC, and the Association of Washington Cities, AWC.
“It's a constant balance between having it be good for open government and good for government,” said Brian Enslow, WSAC policy director.
Though Enslow described most of the requests as legitimate, he said: “There are select individuals who use the law irresponsibly for either personal gain or harassment.”
The association has two main concerns.
One is staff time spent gathering records. While agencies can charge money for photocopies, they cannot charge for time employees spend searching computer systems or that county attorneys spend reviewing records.
The other concern is penalties awarded when agencies fail to provide records. The association might support awarding money to benefit open government, for example, by putting it toward improved records technology, rather than awarding it to an individual.
Some open-government advocates doubt Snohomish County or other agencies have taken full benefit of current state law to reduce unnecessary work.
“This whole idea (...) about boxes and boxes of paper being produced and never picked up, that's because they're not using the tools already at their disposal,” said Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.
State law allows agencies to release large amounts of records in installments, Nixon said. They can cancel subsequent installments if the first isn't picked up. Also, agencies are allowed to ask for deposits on photocopies.
Charging for staff time, especially for attorneys who command high hourly rates, “would eviscerate the public records act,” he said. The expense, he said, doesn't trump the public's right to information.
Each state handles public records differently.
Washington's Public Records Act was established by voter initiative in 1972. It defines public records and requires that most be made available unless otherwise exempted by the law or Legislature.
Florida is widely regarded has having some of the most open public records laws in the country and the state's constitution even guarantees public access to government records.
Florida case law has established that, “Even though a public agency may believe that a person or group are fanatics, harassers or extremely annoying, the public records are available to all the citizens of the state of Florida.”
Unlike Washington, however, the Sunshine State does allow agencies to charge for staff time when information takes more than 15 minutes to retrieve. That relieves some of the burden on government agencies, said Christina Locke, interim assistant director at the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
“We have that situation in Florida and it definitely hasn't eviscerated our public records law,” she said. “Not that it isn't a problem and that people haven't struggled with it.”
Florida law specifies that charges for staff time must be reasonable, Locke said, and that provides a safeguard against being overcharged. If a clerical employee is able to do the work, an agency can't have an attorney perform it at higher rates.
As more government information becomes available electronically, public access should become faster and cheaper, said Jim Rhea, director of the First Amendment Foundation, a Tallahassee, Fla., nonprofit. Databases could be set up to block out legally exempt information automatically so clerks or lawyers don't have to do that by hand.
“We are in that transitional period throughout the country to use computers and databases in such a way that it would reduce staff time,” Rhea said. “As we move toward electronic records, the cost should be going down if they think about the process of creating their documents.”
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
The county receives thousands of requests each year from individuals, neighborhood groups, attorneys and reporters. Often, county staff will compile stacks of records that sit, gathering dust, without anybody coming to pick them up.
County Council responses to public records fill four metal file drawers. There's also a cart that holds the pending requests.
“I would frankly not be surprised to find out that there is in excess of $1 million per year being spent by this county in staff time,” County Council Chairman Dave Gossett said. “The real challenge here is to comply with the legitimate need of citizens to know what their government is doing and to ask questions, with the tremendous amount of work that some of these very broad and repetitive requests create.”
The council has placed public records on a list of state legislative issues for 2011. A draft of the county's legislative agenda notes that “the current (public records) system is costly, inefficient and abused.”
In all, county government has received more than 5,300 records requests in 2010 to date. That number includes only requests tallied because staff needed significant time to search for documents, said Brian Parry, an executive director for County Executive Aaron Reardon.
The County Council is trying to decide how they'd like to see the state law change. They're discussing it with Washington State Association of Counties, WSAC, and the Association of Washington Cities, AWC.
“It's a constant balance between having it be good for open government and good for government,” said Brian Enslow, WSAC policy director.
Though Enslow described most of the requests as legitimate, he said: “There are select individuals who use the law irresponsibly for either personal gain or harassment.”
The association has two main concerns.
One is staff time spent gathering records. While agencies can charge money for photocopies, they cannot charge for time employees spend searching computer systems or that county attorneys spend reviewing records.
The other concern is penalties awarded when agencies fail to provide records. The association might support awarding money to benefit open government, for example, by putting it toward improved records technology, rather than awarding it to an individual.
Some open-government advocates doubt Snohomish County or other agencies have taken full benefit of current state law to reduce unnecessary work.
“This whole idea (...) about boxes and boxes of paper being produced and never picked up, that's because they're not using the tools already at their disposal,” said Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.
State law allows agencies to release large amounts of records in installments, Nixon said. They can cancel subsequent installments if the first isn't picked up. Also, agencies are allowed to ask for deposits on photocopies.
Charging for staff time, especially for attorneys who command high hourly rates, “would eviscerate the public records act,” he said. The expense, he said, doesn't trump the public's right to information.
Each state handles public records differently.
Washington's Public Records Act was established by voter initiative in 1972. It defines public records and requires that most be made available unless otherwise exempted by the law or Legislature.
Florida is widely regarded has having some of the most open public records laws in the country and the state's constitution even guarantees public access to government records.
Florida case law has established that, “Even though a public agency may believe that a person or group are fanatics, harassers or extremely annoying, the public records are available to all the citizens of the state of Florida.”
Unlike Washington, however, the Sunshine State does allow agencies to charge for staff time when information takes more than 15 minutes to retrieve. That relieves some of the burden on government agencies, said Christina Locke, interim assistant director at the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
“We have that situation in Florida and it definitely hasn't eviscerated our public records law,” she said. “Not that it isn't a problem and that people haven't struggled with it.”
Florida law specifies that charges for staff time must be reasonable, Locke said, and that provides a safeguard against being overcharged. If a clerical employee is able to do the work, an agency can't have an attorney perform it at higher rates.
As more government information becomes available electronically, public access should become faster and cheaper, said Jim Rhea, director of the First Amendment Foundation, a Tallahassee, Fla., nonprofit. Databases could be set up to block out legally exempt information automatically so clerks or lawyers don't have to do that by hand.
“We are in that transitional period throughout the country to use computers and databases in such a way that it would reduce staff time,” Rhea said. “As we move toward electronic records, the cost should be going down if they think about the process of creating their documents.”
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
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