Records law tweaks have merit

A couple of bipartisan bills on their way to signing by Gov. Jay Inslee should nudge Washington’s public records law further into the Internet Age.

Both measures emerged from a summer-long task force that sought common ground for reforms that help government agencies manage their records disclosures.

House Bill 1595 was eyed skeptically by many open-government advocates. It lets Washington agencies and local jurisdictions begin charging a small amount for electronic data requests.

Under existing law, agencies already can charge up to 15 cents per page for printed documents.

The legislation allows a 10-cent-per-page charge for each page of a record scanned into electronic formats, a 5-cent charge for every four electronic attachments uploaded for electronic delivery, and 10 cents for every gigabyte of data transmitted electronically.

A $2 default fee would be available for jurisdictions in lieu of a per page charge — if determining actual costs is a burden. The default fee is small enough that most agencies could waive it.

The other measure, HB 1594, takes steps to improve training for local governments in the area of public records management. This orders the Attorney General’s Office to set up a consultation program for local governments and recommend best practices for managing records.

State Archives also must giving training to local governments on records retention. A $1 surcharge on documents recorded by counties is added to pay for the consulting, training and a grant program to help agencies improve their record-keeping technology. These are worthy goals, though we hate to see document recording fees going up again.

Missing from the package of bills this year was a solution for local governments that want to briefly pause their responses on larger records requests in order to fill smaller, quick-to-complete records requests. We hope the AG spurs local governments to adopt model ordinances and best practices around this issue.

The Washington Coalition for Open Government, which includes newspapers such as The Olympian, supported HB 1594 after it was amended to rein in fees, according to group president Toby Nixon. WCOG did not take a position on the final version of HB 1595.

“We are hopeful that the addition of default charges for copies of electronic records will make it easier for agencies to recover their costs of producing copies, and encourage requesters to make their requests more narrowly focused instead of the very broad requests seen when copies are deemed to be ‘free,’ ” Nixon said in an email.

Any barrier to public records disclosure is a potential barrier to holding government accountable. In this case, the small default fee may not unduly harm requesters. The benefits may quiet the yearly complaints from too many local governments that say records disclosure is a burden.

Gov. Inslee should sign the bills into law as a step toward ending the perennial battle by local governments to undermine the Public Records Act.

Both measures need to be monitored to ensure they make disclosure better. If they meaningful barriers to disclosure arise, the law will need revising.

This story was originally published April 29, 2017 at 8:46 PM with the headline "Records law tweaks have merit."