Because of Budget Cuts, Reporting on Budget Cuts More Difficult

California state Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has criticized state and local officials in California who are increasingly blaming budget cuts and furloughs for delays and withholding of information under the state's Public Records Act.

The Sacramento Bee says this new excuse stymies the ability of the media to perform its watchdog role at a critical time when the public should know about budget cuts, downsized programs, and government dysfunction.

Click here for more about delayed or reduced projects due to lack of public information access.

Budget cut will 'gut the progress' of Penn. Office of Open Records

Terry Mutchler, Pennsylvania's first executive director of the Office of Open Records, says the projected budget cuts will defeat the purpose of the newly created office. The office is expecting to be underfunded by $300,000. With such a cut, staff will have to be let go, and more and more citizens will have no option (other than going to court, if they can afford it) for contesting a denial of requested records. Since May 2009, the office has processed about 600 appeals, 2,400 e-mails, 1,200 phone calls and conducted more than 200 FOI training sessions with nine staffers. Some decisions have gone to court, which requires full-time legal attention. "But the reality is that the office is in its infancy and does not have fat to cut. This is not just cutting money -- it's cutting the commitment to ensuring open and honest government."

All is not well at Pennsylvania's new Office of Open Records.

As its first executive director, that is a very difficult but necessary truth to express. I am asking citizens and other open-government advocates for their help. We are at a cross-roads and it is only fair that citizens have an accurate and honest picture of what's happening with this portion of their government.

Pennsylvania rewrote its archaic Right-to-Know Law and created an independent office to resolve records disputes. As of Jan. 1, all records of the government were presumed to be open. Gov. Ed Rendell and Sen. Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi championed this cause, and I applaud them for pulling Pennsylvania out of the dark ages.

More here.

See also, Budget cuts threaten disclosure

Wash. closed-door budget meetings may be illegal

Seattle's city attorney, Tom Carr, is concerned that private budget briefings may have violated Washington's open-meeting law, The Seattle Times reported. The law requires meetings of a quorum to be open, but these conversations included no more than four members. Tim Ford, open-government ombudsman at the state Attorney General's Office, told the newspaper that the closed meetings "may comply with the letter of the law, but it sure doesn't meet the spirit of the act."

Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr said the private, closed-door budget briefings between some city council members and the mayor's staff may violate the state's open-meeting law.

Carr joined the Washington Attorney General's Office and the public-policy group Evergreen Freedom Foundation on Thursday in questioning the sessions, which are ongoing as the city prepares to close a $43 million gap in this year's budget.

"I have my concerns about the spirit of the law as well, and I wish that the council would contact me before doing things like this, but they don't always," Carr said.

More here.

Money for e-mail archive system dries up in Mo.

Missouri legislators cut the funding projected for an e-mail retention system, which was ordered after former Gov. Matt Blunt's e-mail controversy in 2007, the AP reported.

State lawmakers have eliminated funding for a computer system that archives e-mails sent and received by about 34,000 executive branch employees.

Gov. Matt Blunt ordered the e-mail retention system after public scrutiny in 2007 about whether his office was deleting some e-mails that should have been saved as public records.

Gov. Jay Nixon recommended $731,780 in next year's budget to continue the system and expand it to cover the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Department of Natural Resources.

More here.

Mo. lawmakers argue they aren't subject to Sunshine Law

Missouri House Budget Committee Chairman Allen Icet initially refused to provide the AP with documents on how state agencies would handle potential 15, 20 and 25 percent budget cuts. He used the logic that the Sunshine Law applied to any "public governmental body;" he, individually, is not a "public governmental body." The documents, which were released, revealed the possibility that thousands of inmates and more than a hundred sexually violent predators would be released and that hundreds of people with HIV could be prevented from receiving medication.

They require others to comply with open-government laws. But Missouri legislators have exempted themselves from having to turn over documents they prefer to keep secret.

The Missouri House and Senate have interpreted the Sunshine Law not to apply to individual lawmakers - even though it does apply to the Legislature as a whole, legislative committees and legislative staff.

Whether that complies with the spirit of the Sunshine Law is questionable. Whether that is the correct interpretation of the law also is a matter of some dispute.

More here.