In an age of increasing mistrust and wariness between citizens and government, transparency is perhaps more important than ever. It is essential for the people to be able to peek behind the curtain and see exactly how public officials are performing their jobs.
Since its approval by voters in 1972, Washington’s Public Records Act has provided a glimpse behind that curtain, ensuring that public documents are, indeed, public in an accessible and affordable manner. And while the law could use some updating to meet the realities of the digital age, any changes should only increase public accessibility to documents and records. Openness to the inner workings of government helps build trust and faith in the system, traits that appear to be particularly fragile these days.
The Public Records Act allows citizens to request and receive documents relating to how government conducts the business of the people. This includes records of meetings between public officials, or detailed budgets from agencies, or salary information of employees who are being paid by the public. All of which makes sense. The people are the bosses, and the bosses need to know what is going on within the company.
Yet, since the Public Records Act was enacted more than four decades ago, it has been encumbered by more than 400 exemptions to the law. It also has been prone to abuse from some members of the public, with gadflies making requests designed to be troublesome rather than to glean information. In total, the state Auditor’s Office says that governments throughout the state spent more than $60 million in 2015 while filling more than 100,000 records requests.
This often leads to frustration on the part of government employees. Providing a document is not as simple as attaching it to an email and sending it off; records must be examined for confidential information and often redacted — a time-consuming endeavor that slows the process and distracts employees from the other duties of their jobs.
Yet while frustration is understandable, the Legislature should be loath to make changes that reduce public access or further limit which records are available to the public.
With that in mind, a pair of bills in the Legislature — HB1594 and HB1595 — require some tweaking. Both bills are co-sponsored by Rep. Vicki Kraft, R-Vancouver, and HB1595 also is co-sponsored by Rep. Paul Harris, R-Vancouver. The legislation includes increased fees and rule changes designed to ease the burden upon government agencies that is caused by malicious requests. HB1594, for example, includes a provision allowing agencies to seek mediation if they question the validity of a request. This could force members of the public to fight for the right to see documents that legally belong to them. HB1595 includes a provision charging a per-minute fee for video or audio files, a provision that could make the requests prohibitively expensive.
Rep. Joan McBride, D-Kirkland, is leading the charge in support of the bills and acknowledges that they likely will undergo changes to improve them. She told The Seattle Times that she wants “people to be able to get records inexpensively and quickly.”
That must remain the goal as the Legislature considers any changes to the Public Records Act. While some records requests can be a nuisance for government, particularly small local agencies, they are little more than that — a nuisance. And a nuisance is a small price to pay for open government that helps to foster the trust of the people.
