Toni Chadwick was named open records counsel for Tennessee’s Office of Open Records Counsel. The office provides resources and answers citizen and government official questions about public records and open meetings laws.
Toni Chadwick has been hired as the new open records counsel for the Office of Open Records Counsel for the state of Tennessee.
Chadwick was previously an administrative judge for the State of Tennessee’s Division of TennCare where she presided over hearings related to program eligibility, according to the Comptroller’s Office announcement.
The Office of Open Records Counsel is within the Comptroller’s Office. It answers questions for local government officials and citizens about the public records and open meetings laws as well as provides occasional advisory opinions and informal mediation of disputes. Other functions of the office are its maintenance of a searchable database of exemptions to the public records law, its best practices guidelines, its schedule of reasonable charges, and a list of state and county contacts for public records requests. The office was established and funded with legislation in 2008. Funding was later provided to expand the office from one to two full-time lawyers.
Chadwick replaces Maria Bush, who had held the position since April 2022. Previous lawyers who served as the open records counsel were Lee Pope, who served first as deputy open records counsel and then five more years as open records counsel before leaving for private practice in April 2022; Ann Butterworth, who served two different times — when the office was first created and as interim counsel about three years before Pope was appointed; and Elisha Hodge who served from 2008 to 2013.
Chadwick began her career in state government in 2009 with the Tennessee Department of Labor, where she served as a commissioner’s designee making final decisions regarding eligibility of unemployment insurance claims.
Bush will remain with the office on a part-time basis, the Comptroller’s Office said in a press release.
