Government has a duty to turn over records

Today is the beginning of Sunshine Week, an annual event sponsored by the American Association of Newspaper Editors that is “about the public’s right to know what its government is doing, and why. Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger.”

At the state Auditor’s Office, we’ve been engaged in our own effort along these lines: a performance audit of how 30 state agencies and local governments respond to public records requests and what can be done to ensure a successful response for governments and citizens alike.

Some have questioned why we did this audit.

The answer is simple: Citizens asked us to.

In 2006 and 2007, we fanned out across the state using in-person and electronic town-hall meetings and telephone surveys to get a read on what citizens wanted from our performance audit program.

In all, we heard from 1,000 people with interests as varied as you might expect. One thing we didn’t expect, and what prompted this audit, was the frustration we heard over and over from citizens who feel they are not getting enough information on government. We don’t know yet why they feel this way; we plan to explore this further this year.

As a starting point, however, we thought we’d take a look at how agencies respond to requests and what it takes to provide good customer service in the public records arena.

I’m not going to go into all of the details of what we found or what we are recommending. That information will be in the audit report scheduled for release in April.

But I will share a few general observations:

• Tone at the top is the most important factor in successful responses to public records requests. Agency managers and public records officers who genuinely want to provide citizens the information they want, in a format they can understand, and in a time frame in which it is useful, create what the Attorney General’s Office Model Rules for public records calls “a culture of compliance.”

• Training is key. In fact, many of the public records officers we interviewed stated training is a critical factor in successful responses to records requests. For example, we found that the understanding of what is required by the Public Records Act varies when it comes to exemptions from disclosure.

• Having a good system in place to track the progress of responses, and a willingness to communicate with the requestor for clarification on requests and the timing of responses demonstrates a commitment, again, to that culture of compliance. Making it easy to file requests, especially thorough electronic means, also assists requestors.

In 1976, voters approved Initiative 276. When they said “yes” to this measure, they conveyed this message:

“The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created.”

Access to public records is a fundamental facet of transparency and a fundamental right of every citizen. Conversely, providing access to public records is a fundamental duty of all government entities, from the smallest special-purpose district to the largest state agency to private-public partnerships, such as public development authorities.

Brian Sonntag, a Democrat from Tacoma, is serving his third term as state auditor.