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The FOI Advocate is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The blog relies on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. We will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.

Friday, June 05, 2009

NFOIC Summit: Wisconsin FOIA roundup


State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Christa Westerberg of Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council provided a summary of her state's FOI news.
  • Wisconsin has seen good legal developments because of court cases that clarifies what constitutes good notice and when quasi-government organizations are subject to open meetings and records laws.
  • The state has no consistent retention policy on any records. The attorney general says agencies must have a policy, but it doesn't matter what's in it.
  • Legislators are working on a shield law for reporters' notebooks and sources.
  • We're trying to model Minnesota's policy for police records.
  • The state could use a better fees policy. Fees are now issued at the discretion of the custodian so there's a lot of arbitrariness.
  • The state legislature is allowed to hammer out the budget in some private committees. Two provisions in the proposed budget include: the expungement of certain felon records and the elimination of designating official state newspapers so that required government notices could just go online without being published in print publications.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

State has no consistent policy!!
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