DENVER – Legislators have tried this year to expand public access to the finances of school districts and force school boards to keep records of their secret sessions.
The Legislature considers dozens of bills each year that affect public records in some way, and this year, some of the most controversial deal with public schools.
Democrats wanted to pass House Bill 1110, which requires school boards to record their entire closed-door sessions and post minutes of what board members talked about. Currently, a school board’s lawyer can recommend that certain parts of secret sessions not be recorded because of attorney-client privilege.
However, the effort fell flat Wednesday, when the Senate sponsor asked to have the bill killed. The bill drew fierce Republican opposition because it was introduced after conservative candidates won election to two large school boards in November and promptly hired the same Colorado Springs lawyer to advise them.
Separately, Republicans renewed their push this year to require school districts to post details about their finances online. School districts don’t dispute that their financial data is public information, but they object to the mandate to post it online after several years of budget cuts imposed by the Legislature.
Although it began as a Republican idea, the transparency mandate is now part of the bipartisan Student Success Act, HB 1292. The bill has not yet passed its first hearing.
In addition to the school bills, the Legislature also is considering several other changes to the sunshine laws.
Chief among them is HB 1193, which limits the fees government agencies can charge for public-records requests. For requests that require a government employee to do research, the bill would limit hourly fees to four times the minimum wage. This year, the limit would be $32 an hour.
Government watchdogs frequently complain that exorbitant fees for copying or records retrieval are a barrier to accessing public records.
Other bills:
Senate Bill 70 would have applied open-records laws to nongovernmental organizations made up chiefly of elected officials, such as the Colorado Municipal League and Colorado Counties Inc. The bill failed.
SB 129 would automatically seal court records for the first offense of a minor who violated marijuana laws. It has passed the Senate.
HB 1152 requires governments to destroy videos from police surveillance cameras after three years unless there is a good reason to keep the recordings.
jhanel@durangoherald.com
Want to know more about open records?
DENVER – Government watchdogs have a new ally to help them find public information.
The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, or CFOIC, has been around since the 1980s, but it transformed itself last year, raised money and hired an executive director to advance the cause of open government.
“It’s not just for journalists. It’s for any citizen,” said Jeff Roberts, executive director of CFOIC.
In fact, he said citizen activists are becoming more important as newspapers and television stations – the traditional crusaders for open access to public information – tighten their budgets.
“Resources to fight open-records battles are dwindling, and if we can shore that up, step in and empower people, maybe that’s a good thing,” Roberts said.
Using the coalition’s website, www.coloradofoic.org, he tracks open-records bills in the Legislature and stays on top of disputes in city councils and courthouses across Colorado.
The website also includes resources to help citizens know the open-records law and make requests for public data.
Roberts, a former data reporter for The Denver Post, also has posted links to several government databases, and he would like to add more public data to the website.
He credited Herald editor Don Lindley for pushing the coalition to grow into an active force.
Roberts said he gets frequent calls, and interest in the coalition is increasing as more people learn about it.
“We are here to try to help them navigate the laws and their rights,” he said.
jhanel@durangoherald.com
In this series
Today: Do local agencies comply with open-records law?
Monday: The Herald seeks to obtain city liquor license info; John Peel on why open records matter
Tuesday: What’s the Legislature doing about open records? Plus details on the work of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition
