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

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 [...]

Open Records Counsel sets ACOG meeting, plans survey, hearings on public records

By Deborah Fisher|2015-06-29T07:47:06-05:00June 22, 2015|Categories: fees|Tags: ACOG, Advisory Committee on Open Government, Ann Butterworth, fees for public records, Office of Open Records Counsel|0 Comments

The Office of Open Records Counsel has set a Monday, June 29, meeting of the Advisory Committee on Open Government to discuss a study on issues related to inspection of public records. The meeting will be at 10:30 a.m. in Room 29 of Legislative Plaza in Nashville, and will be live-video streamed and accessible from the Tennessee General Assembly's website. The agenda includes discussion of the scope of the study, a proposed questionnaire/survey and hearings on public records issues. It also includes discussion about a plan for review for the Schedule of Reasonable Charges, the Frequent and Multiple Request and Safe Harbor Policies, the Best Practices Guidelines and FAQs and [...]

Lawmakers tweak public records law, but avoid new fees for now

By Deborah Fisher|2015-09-25T17:03:32-05:00April 28, 2015|Categories: fees, Legislature|Tags: Advisory Committee on Open Government, City of Franklin, Erlanger Health Systems, executive session, fees for public records, legislature, Office of Open Records Counsel, performance evaluations, public hospital boards, State Rep. Mike Carter, State Rep. Steve McDaniel, State Sen. Jim Tracy, TCOG news, Tennessee School, TSSAA, utilities|1 Comment

Sponsors delayed action on legislation that could have made accessing public records more expensive for citizens and news media, but lawmakers in the 109th General Assembly moved ahead on other changes to the state's public records law. A new exemption was added to make performance evaluations of more state employees confidential. Another was added to make sure student academic and health information remained private. And yet another reinforced already existing exemptions to protect credit card numbers and email addresses of citizens held by government. The most far-reaching public records bill was one that never made it to committee for discussion — a proposal to impose new fees on citizens who asked to inspect public [...]