The dome of the Montana Capitol, with the statue of Mike and Maureen Mansfield in the lower center (By Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan).
A bill to streamline the way state agencies respond to public records requests will more effectively administer the right to know, protected in the state Constitution, said the sponsor.
But a couple of opponents said it raises concerns about costs, and, therefore, accessibility to records.
House Bill 100, sponsored by Rep. Bill Mercer, R-Billings, is a progression of a couple of other bills from 2023, Mercer told a House committee on Friday.
Mercer said one bill addressing public records in 2023 focused only on cabinet level agencies, and HB 100 would cover other parts of state government. He said it would ensure requests are fulfilled in a timely fashion and standardize the process along with costs.
Generally, Mercer said, HB 100 will follow the lessons learned from the previous bills, Senate Bill 232, sponsored by Sen. Janet Ellis, D-Helena, and House Bill 580, which Mercer sponsored.
Those bills helped shed light on the way requests are handled, he said. For instance, how many requests do agencies receive? How much time does it take to fulfill them?
HB 100 was born out of that implementation, he said. It was requested by the Department of Administration and is supported by the Governor’s Office.
Mercer said lawmakers will hear a concern the bill will “unduly burden access to public information.” He said he doesn’t want to create a process that is onerous, but research and providing records to the public takes resources.
“On the other hand, there is no question that there is a cost associated with the work that the various departments have to do,” Mercer said.
One amendment will impose a cap to do the research at $25 an hour, and Mercer said he views it as a friendly amendment to address some worries of opponents.
Jim Strauss, representing the Montana Newspaper Association and the Montana Freedom of Information Hotline, said members appreciate the bill’s attempt to bring consistency to responses to records requests — and Mercer’s willingness to hear them.
The Montana Freedom of Information Hotline helps people with records requests, and a decade or more ago, the majority of calls it received were from members of the media, said Strauss, a former newspaper publisher.
Now, it’s helping members of the public more frequently than journalists, he said.
But members of the public are being quoted varying costs, from several hundred dollars to as high as $2,000, which he said has a chilling effect on their ability to access the records.
“Many members of the public give up at that point and just end up frustrated,” Strauss said.
It’s the duty of state agencies to ensure the public’s right to know is served, he said, but if the cost is too expensive, the right to know is not served.
Ronda Wiggers, with the Montana Broadcasters Association, said her organization will oppose the bill until it’s amended to cap the hourly rate at $25 for research.
However, she said she supports the effort by the Department of Administration and Governor’s Office to ensure people don’t get different treatment by different agencies when it comes to records requests.
“That’s very encouraging and highly appreciated,” Wiggers said.
The committee did not take action on the bill Friday, and an online bill tracker said it had not done so Monday either.