Advisory Committee on Open Government Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

24 Feb, 2016

Model public records policy to be developed under proposed bill

By Deborah Fisher|2016-03-10T08:46:27-06:00February 24, 2016|Categories: Legislature, Office of Open Records Counsel, requests|Tags: Advisory Committee on Open Government, Office of Open Records Counsel, public records request, State Rep. Bill Dunn, State Sen. Richard Briggs|2 Comments

State Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, presented an addition to state law Wednesday that would require each government entity in Tennessee to adopt a written public records policy and designate a "public records coordinator" who would be the "go-to person" understanding the policy and how things are carried out. State Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville. Click on picture to see video. His bill, H.B. 2082, also requires the Office of Open Records Counsel to develop a model best practices and public records policy that local and state government entities can use. The bill passed out of the House State Government Subcommittee on Wednesday with an amendment proposed by Dunn that [...]

31 Aug, 2015

TCOG answers state’s 5 questions on charging fees for public records

By Deborah Fisher|2016-03-10T08:51:27-06:00August 31, 2015|Categories: fees, Office of Open Records Counsel, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: Advisory Committee on Open Government, fees for public records, Office of Open Records Counsel, redactions, Schedule of Reasonable Charges|0 Comments

The Office of Open Records Counsel is posing five questions about charging fees for public records at upcoming hearings Sept. 15-17 in Knoxville, Nashville and Jackson. Open Records Counsel Ann Butterworth is gathering comments in advance of making a recommendation in January on whether the law should be changed to allow governments to charge citizens to look at public records. Following are TCOG's responses to the five questions. 1. Should the TPRA (Tennessee Public Records Act) permit record custodians to charge for inspection of public records? No. New fees would choke off citizen access to a wide swath of public records. Plain and simple, we believe that allowing government to [...]

12 Aug, 2015

Hearings on public records fees scheduled for September

By Deborah Fisher|2015-08-18T10:10:18-05:00August 12, 2015|Categories: fees|Tags: Advisory Committee on Open Government, Ann Butterworth, fees for public records, Office of Open Records Counsel, TCOG news, Tennessee Press Association|4 Comments

The Office of Open Records Counsel has set public hearings for Sept. 15-17 in Knoxville, Nashville and Jackson to gather input on whether citizens should have to pay local and state government to inspect public records. The hearings on public records fees are being conducted after the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government and the Tennessee Press Association opposed bills in the last legislative session that would allow for the first time local governments and state agencies to charge labor fees to provide public records for citizen inspection. Currently, Tennessee law allows citizens free access to inspect public records, but allows charges if the citizen wants copies. TCOG, TPA and other [...]

8 Jul, 2015

My favorite part of the ACOG meeting about charging new fees for public records (VIDEO)

By Deborah Fisher|2015-07-09T01:26:30-05:00July 8, 2015|Categories: fees|Tags: Advisory Committee on Open Government, Ann Butterworth|0 Comments

The Office of Open Records Counsel has posted video of the meeting she held with the Advisory Committee on Open Government Committee meeting from June 29. The topics covered were upcoming public hearings and questionnaires to gather information so, as Open Records Counsel Ann Butterworth told the group, she can make her recommendation to the Legislature, presumably on whether or not to propose new fees on citizens to inspect public records, and if so, how. (See previous blog post: Public hearings, survey to gather citizen, government input on public records fee proposal.) Since the video is long (1 hour and 43 minutes), I've highlighted a part of the video below that takes [...]

30 Jun, 2015

Public hearings, survey to gather citizen, government input on public records fee proposal

By Deborah Fisher|2015-06-30T16:03:41-05:00June 30, 2015|Categories: fees|Tags: Advisory Committee on Open Government, Ann Butterworth, Blake Farmer, David Moore, Dick Williams, Don Long, fees for public records, Janet Kleinfelter, Lucian Pera, Robb Harvey, State Rep. Bob Ramsey, State Rep. Steve McDaniel, State Sen. Jim Tracy, Sumner County|0 Comments

Three public hearings will be held around the state in September to gather opinions and input about a legislative proposal to allow local and state government agencies to charge fees to citizens to inspect public records. Currently, the Tennessee Public Records Act says that citizens must be allowed to view public records for free, but citizens can be charged if they request copies of those records. In the case of copies, citizens by law can be charged both the actual cost of the copy and a per-hour labor fee for the time it takes to compile the records after the first hour. Open Records Counsel Ann Butterworth outlined her draft [...]