Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
Facing pressure from media outlets across the state, House and Senate members are preparing to vote as early as next week on a sweeping expansion of the state’s public records law that would impose new administrative burdens, timelines and significant unfunded mandates on cities and towns.
The bill, a redrafted version of H. 2772 (a new number will be assigned in the coming days), was voted out of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight late this afternoon. The bill could be debated by the full House as early as next Tuesday, July 21, and immediately proceed to the Senate.
The bill would impose greater burdens on all municipal and state agencies, although the Legislature would continue to exempt itself from all aspects of the public records law.
Unfunded mandates
The bill would impose new unfunded mandates on cities and towns by significantly reducing the amount that communities can charge for complying with a public records request and expanding municipal responsibilities.
Reimbursements for cost of producing records
The bill would prevent communities from being reimbursed for the cost of segregating, reviewing, programming, formatting, redacting or determining whether a record is exempt under the law (there are 21 different categories of exemptions in order to protect the public interest or individual privacy rights), unless it would require more than 20 hours to locate, compile and copy, and the record is more than 500 pages in length.
Reimbursement limits
Under the legislation, communities could only be reimbursed for staff time over two hours for copying the records (at the lowest paid rate of administrative staff), 5 cents a page per copy, or the cost of the flash drive or other electronic storage device, unless the request would take more than 20 hours and 500 pages to fulfill.
Reduced-cost records
The bill states that cities and towns must charge nothing, or a reduced fee, for requests that are “in the public interest” and “contribute significantly to public understanding.” Media outlets interpret this to mean that they would not be required to pay at all.
15-day mandate
Communities would only have 15 days to comply – that is, completely fulfill – every public records request, except that cities and towns could petition the supervisor of public records to ask for an extra 30 days if it will take more than 20 hours of staff time to comply and will result in 500 or more printed pages.
Electronic format
All public records would be required to be provided in electronic format if they exist in electronic format (e.g., emails, payroll records), if requested, and must be in a common, sortable format. (Communities cannot be reimbursed for the cost of programming.)
Database mandate
All future upgrades to community databases and electronic storage systems would be required to be designed to store all public records and comply with all future requests, including being able to sort exempt and non-exempt public records.
Public records officer
All cities and towns would be required to appoint at least one public records officer, with expanded duties to facilitate the fulfillment of public records requests, to publicize all existing databases and categories of public records, and publish the results of all future public records requests.
Fines
Cities and towns would be subject to fines of $20 a day for the first 30 days if they do not comply with a public records request, and $50 a day thereafter, imposed by either a court or the supervisor of public records.
Attorney fees
Under the legislation, cities and towns could be forced to pay attorney fees and court costs to plaintiffs who bring action under the law, if the plaintiffs “substantially” prevail.
Harassment limit
The bill would allow any party to submit up to 15 separate public records requests in any 30-day period, with no limitations, and communities would be required to comply with all of them subject to the same timeliness and reimbursement restrictions outlined above.
The MMA and municipal leaders argue that this legislation would tax municipal capacity to administer and manage daily municipal operations and impose new unfunded mandates.
The MMA and municipal leaders are asking legislators to either fully fund the municipal costs and impacts or rewrite the bill to exempt cities and towns from any new public records requirements.
• Download redrafted public records legislation reported out of committee (92K PDF)