Colorado could allow longer time to fulfill open records requests

A view inside the Colorado Capitol toward the entrance to the Senate, Feb. 6, 2024. (Quentin Young/Colorado Newsline)

Colorado could soon allow governments to take longer to fulfill requests subject to the Colorado Open Records Act under a bill in the state Legislature, but it includes a carve out for journalists.

Senate Bill 25-77 passed a House committee Monday and now heads to the full House chamber for consideration. It passed the Senate on a 27-6 vote in February.

The bill would give custodians of government records five days, instead of three, to respond to CORA requests. It would extend that timeframe to 10 days from seven if “extenuating circumstances” exist, such as if a request that encompasses a large quantity of records that could not reasonably be gathered in five days.

It would add an extenuating circumstance if the record custodian is not scheduled to work within the response period.

“For a lot of our smaller entities, it is really hard to comply with three days,” Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, said.

Soper is running the bill with Democratic Rep. Michael Carter of Aurora, Democratic Sen. Cathy Kipp of Fort Collins and Republican Sen. Janice Rich of Grand Junction. It comes after a failed effort last year to amend CORA by labeling some people “vexatious requesters.”

A high volume of records requests can interfere with the ability of school boards and government offices to perform their core functions, sponsors and supporters say. Karen Wick, a lobbyist for Jefferson County, said that the county saw 217 requests in 2019, but that jumped to 650 in 2024. A recent request sought information about the number of acres affected by a tree removal, resulting in 36 hours of work that yielded over 1,000 emails and 300 documents, she said.

“When Colorado law requires us to respond within three to seven days, with this number of requests, we end up having to put our other normal work aside so we can fulfill them,” she said.

Media would still be subject to the three-day timeline. Soper said that is because journalists are often very specific about their records requests, making them easier to complete.

But that provision is a sticking point for opponents of the bill, who argue it gives journalists preferential treatment over regular citizens who request records.

“Us citizens get to put up with a lot of the policy that the government puts out. But bills like this make citizens second class to the media and I question the fairness of that,” said Cory Gaines, who runs the Colorado Accountability Project Substack newsletter.

Jeffrey Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, testified that an extended timeline creates another obstacle for records requests. He said that there have been more efforts to restrict, rather than expand, access to records in recent years.

“Fees already are a significant barrier to obtaining public records, which is why governments don’t need a reason to take longer to process CORA requests,” he said.

If a custodian determines that a request is “for the direct solicitation of business for pecuniary gain,” such as a business wanting to reach out directly to people identified in a records request, governments would be able to charge the “reasonable cost” of fulfilling the request, other than the $41.37 maximum hourly rate, and take 30 days to complete the request. The bill would not prevent those types of requests.

Other provisions in the bill would let governments treat two similar CORA requests made by the same person within two weeks of one another as one request.

It also would require that governments put their CORA process and record retention policy online, give a requester a breakdown of the cost for record retrieval if requested, and allow electronic payments for CORA requests if the government accepts electronic payment for other services.