Government
transparency is in some ways the opposite of government waste: Everyone claims
to support transparency, and it seldom happens by accident.
FEWER EXCUSES:
Technology has made information easier to store, find, and copy, assuming
public officials make a good faith effort.
Recent bad examples
abound, from Hillary Clinton’s deleted “private” State Department emails to Jeb
Bush’s accidental disclosure of several
individuals’ Social Security numbers in emails released from his
tenure as Florida governor.
President Obama
boasts of leading “the most transparent administration in
history,” a claim clashing with the operations of his Internal Revenue
Service and his State Department under Clinton, as well as his push for Obamacare and
other major policies.
Citizens expect to
know how their money is being spent — and how politicians reach decisions on
spending it — not just in Washington, D.C., but at the state and local levels,
too. Absent Clintonian stonewalling and destruction of records, the federal Freedom of Information Act is meant
to ensure this is possible.
Government agencies
are required to provide access to records maintained under retention schedules
set by FOIA or state law, so long as requests are clear and not overly broad.
State and federal laws also set guidelines for disputing rejection of requests
agencies deem unreasonable.
When public
officials destroy, deny the existence of or refuse to provide access to
records, FOIA at least provides a process that helps watchdogs expose those
abuses.
Increasingly,
government records that were once only accessible by submitting a FOIA request
are available online. Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, for example, recently published extensive state spending
data at OhioCheckbook.com.
State laws based on the FOIA model vary, and local
disclosure processes depend on state sunshine laws. Laws on reporting and
public disclosure of lobbying also vary at the state level.
Open-government
groups, including Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press,
make open record requests less daunting, but the easiest way to determine how a
government office handles requests is to contact the agency in question.
In Ohio, Attorney
General Mike DeWine’s office provides an explanation of state sunshine laws. Sunshine
law training for state and local officials is open to the public, and even offered online.
In central Ohio,
the Delaware County Commissioners have implemented a 26-page public records policy
to comply with state law.
Under the county’s
records policy, each office is to designate an individual who will be
responsible for record retention and responding to public requests. Paper
copies cost a nickel per page, documents copied to disc cost $1, and there is
no charge if requested records can be provided by email.
“Any person,
including corporations, individuals, and even governmental agencies, may
request public records, and will be allowed prompt inspection of public records
and copies within a reasonable amount of time upon request,” the county policy
dictates.
“No specific
language is required to make a request for public records. The requestor must,
however, identify the records requested with sufficient clarity to allow the
Board and/or Delaware County to identify, retrieve, and review the records,”
the policy continues.
The commissioners’
office fulfilled 97 requests last year and had completed 16 requests this year
as of March 13, Delaware County communications manager Teri Morgan said in an
email to Watchdog.org. What did compliance with state record law cost county
taxpayers?
“The County is not
allowed to charge for indirect costs, so there is not a record of the cost of
the time spent,” Morgan explained.
Asked for comment
on how people can get prompt access to county records, Morgan said, “I wish
people would just ask for the document they want, rather than try to turn it
into a fishing expedition.”
When FOIA requests
work as intended, they’re that simple: someone asks to see a document, and
within days or weeks gets access to a copy — with any private information
redacted — at minimal cost and minimal expense to taxpayers.
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