Ellington

Although we're still mired in winter, the new year has brought a couple rays of sunshine: some promising developments in government transparency.

First up is a set of public-records rules that the state Ethics Commission is set to adopt Jan. 15. The Ethics Commission, which functions a bit like an ombudsman on public-information issues, has been hammering out model public-records rules for state agencies since last year. While they haven't been formally adopted, yet, it's probably a safe bet to talk about them, as the Commission only put off adopting them because they wanted all members present for the vote.

The rules themselves are a good step forward. In outlining best practices for public bodies, they encourage agencies always to err on the side of disclosing public records. They also give firmer deadlines for responding to a public-records request, requiring agencies to respond within five days, even if only to provide an estimate of when the records will be available. State law gives public bodies 14 working days to grant or deny a records request, and agencies often use the full time, even for simple requests that could be honored earlier. Establishing an earlier deadline for a basic response could encourage agencies to speed up the entire request process.

But while these rules sound nice, they don't necessarily amount to any changes, because they aren't binding. Once the Ethics Commission adopts them, individual state and local agencies can adopt the model rules or develop their own.

A more binding change could come from a SB 2373, sponsored by Sen. David Baria, D-Pascagoula, that could eliminate one barrier to challenging open-meetings violations. Watchdogs—whether they're members of the media, government employees or ordinary citizens—currently have two options for protesting a closed meeting. They can sue the public body in circuit court, or they can file a complaint with the Ethics Commission. If they sue successfully, the judge can levy a fine on the public body responsible, but watchdogs have no guarantee of ever recouping their attorney's fees.

Filing a complaint with the Ethics Commission is cheaper, but even at best, it still ends with a fine assessed on the public body. The cost of a fine to the public body, whether it's through the courts or the Ethics Commission, ultimately falls on taxpayers.

This isn't some hypothetical loophole: In August 2009, two of the three state transportation commissioners, Bill Minor and Wayne Brown, met state transportation Director Butch Brown for dinner to discuss an interchange project. When he learned of the meeting, the third transportation commissioner, Dick Hall, lodged a complaint with the state Ethics Commission, arguing that the meeting violated the state's open meetings law.

The Ethics Commission agreed, but it waived the $100 fine that Wayne Brown and Minor were liable for, because that money would have come from the state Transportation Commission's budget and, thus, ultimately, from state taxpayers.

The problem, Baria told the Jackson Free Press, is that Mississippi's open-meetings law "never hits the violator in the pocketbook." Baria wants to change that by making the fines assessable on the individual violator(s) and requiring that the violator pay reasonable attorney's fees. He also wants to raise the fine amount to between $500 and $1,000. This would mark an important step forward in helping citizens hold public officials accountable.

The Ethics Commission's proposed rules are noticeably weak, though, on one of the most important public-records issues: cost. State law allows public bodies to charge anyone—media and concerned citizens alike—"reasonable" fees to offset the cost of retrieving and duplicating public records. With no other guidance on what "reasonable" might mean, different public bodies in the state have developed wildly different charging practices for records requests.

In Madison County, requests for records that total under 100 pages are free. For other agencies, "reasonable" can mean fees for copies and the staff time required to compile the records, no matter their accessibility.

The Jackson Free Press has been haggling over costs with the Mississippi Department of Education and Jackson Public Schools since September, after submitting public-records requests for documents on a federally funded tutoring program. MDE has demanded $230.35 for correspondence between the department and one private tutoring company. That cost includes seven person-hours of work by MDE staff, with hourly rates—based on the staff persons' salaries—ranging from $16.24 to $40.24.

A still-shoestring operation like the JFP can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars for public records. The old daily newspaper giants could afford to shell out for reams of correspondence between government officials, but that has never been the case for the private citizens and cash-strapped watchdog groups that have just as much a right to public information as Big Media. Charging a prohibitively high cost for copying and retrieval has become a way of stonewalling records requests while still appearing compliant. And it means that the only media that can afford the documents are the ones who are often the least likely to ask for them.

Unfortunately, the proposed rules do little on this front. They do offer a default copy price of 15 cents per page, which is less than the standard 25-cent rate for state offices. That figure is merely an option, however, as is the suggestion that agencies waive copying charges for requests under 100 pages. The rules only stipulate that copying charges cannot exceed the "actual" cost of copying.

Previous Comments

ID

155145

Comment

Politicians pay lip service to transparency in government, it sounds good to campaign on but they have little interest in making it a reality. Even President Obama claimed he would have the most transparent administration in history and that all the negotiations for health care reform would be broadcast on C-Span. He has not delivered on any of those campaign promises, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on these bills and rules changes to be adopted.

Author

WMartin

Date

2010-01-15T07:59:20-06:00