Municipalities, school districts prepared for new open records law
January 14, 2009 New RTK Law | Radnor Twp
By Sam Strike
Main Line Suburban Life
As of January 1, 2009, school districts, municipalities, and state agencies are officially responding to requests for information differently.
Along the Main Line, governing bodies have crafted new policies and adopted new procedures that align with the new Right to Know law, which was signed into law last year and went into effect two weeks ago.
The most significant difference between the old and the new laws is a theoretical one – that records are considered open unless proven to be otherwise.
The burden of proof, as it were, is now on an agency and not on a document requester.
Pennsylvania had recently been considered to have one of the most limited open records laws in the country.
While the new open records law has catapulted the commonwealth into the 21st century in terms of its open records access, it likely won't change the day-to-day routines of the agencies affected by it, according to those interviewed.
“I don't foresee any day to day difference, however, with any new regulations there are sure to be a few hiccups here and there,” said Amanda Ostrander-Serock, Director of Personnel and Public Affairs for Radnor Township.
“…For the most part we are all well trained and it should be working as smoothly as it was in the past,” said Ostrander-Serock, who has been appointed the township’s Right to Know officer – a position mandated by the law.
As Right to Know officer, she is responsible for receiving submitted requests, directing them to other people if necessary, tracking the progress in responding to the requests, issuing interim and final responses, and maintaining a file of all open records requests.
In 2008 Ostrander-Serock processed the 184 Right to Know requests that came through the township. So far this year she has received two, she said last week.
Two is the total number of official Right to Know requests that neighboring Tredyffrin Township received in all of 2008, according to its township manager Mimi Gleason, who added that the staff receive informal requests for information on a near-daily basis.
(Also by comparison, Lower Merion Township handled 16 records requests in 2008.)
“We sort of have a different philosophy” from others, said Tredyffrin’s solicitor Tom Hogan. “Tredyffrin runs a very open government, both for the prior and the new law. We usually exceed the law in granting access to documents.”
Informally asking for and granting records is easier for both staff members and the public, he said.
Hogan pointed to both Tredyffrin’s Board of Supervisors and Gleason, saying that they promote the “open” attitude that also runs through the township staff.
And as a former federal prosecutor, “I think [the public] should have absolute access to just about everything,” he said.
But most everyone agrees that there are a number of facts that shouldn’t be open to the public, many having to do with personnel matters.
Even under the new law, there is a list of 30 exceptions to what constitutes an open record.
In December, the Radnor Township School District Board of School Directors adopted its own policy, which was partly constructed from a sample policy written by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and which explicitly lists 25 of the exceptions.
But some of those exceptions, like “certain employee information” and “certain library records” are vague.
The school district’s solicitor Michael Puppio agrees, and said that exceptions like the one on “pre-decisional deliberation” are complex and will eventually come to litigation somewhere.
“Someone’s going to litigate it,” he said, adding that vague clauses in laws are litigated and eventually provide guidelines.
(Salaries of public employees indeed became open after litigation, he said.)
Puppio said that he doesn’t think the new law will necessarily cause additional litigation in Radnor, but it will somewhere prompt “guidepost litigation” where a court will interpret what the legislature meant.
Appeals to denials of open records will, under the new law, be considered not in local Courts of Common Pleas but in the newly created Office of Open Records, which also provides advisory opinions of interpretations of the law.
The final determination by the office may be appealed through a petition for review to the Commonwealth Court.
The new review process will provide a statewide level of consistency that has been lacking, Puppio said.
Gone is the “unwieldy” process and inconsistent rulings from judges in the Court of Common Pleas, Tredyffrin’s Hogan said.
(In next week’s issue of Suburban Life read about Radnor Township resident Judy Sherry’s Right to Know petition, which is stuck for the foreseeable future in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas.)
In preparation for the new open records law taking effect, the local municipalities and school districts crafted and adopted their own policies and took the required steps of creating a presence on its web sites, developing a request form, and posting contact information for the state’s Office of Open Records and identifying the in-house open records officer.
To be sure, there will be hiccups. Even some members of the Radnor Township School District’s Board of School Directors stated at their meeting in December that they wanted to send the proposed policy back to the committee level.
Instead, board president Steve Gerber encouraged the board to pass the policy, which it did.
Asked whether it will now be reviewed, Gerber said, “I think were going to see how it goes, and it will go back as needed and as things develop.”
Main Line Suburban Life
As of January 1, 2009, school districts, municipalities, and state agencies are officially responding to requests for information differently.
Along the Main Line, governing bodies have crafted new policies and adopted new procedures that align with the new Right to Know law, which was signed into law last year and went into effect two weeks ago.
The most significant difference between the old and the new laws is a theoretical one – that records are considered open unless proven to be otherwise.
The burden of proof, as it were, is now on an agency and not on a document requester.
Pennsylvania had recently been considered to have one of the most limited open records laws in the country.
While the new open records law has catapulted the commonwealth into the 21st century in terms of its open records access, it likely won't change the day-to-day routines of the agencies affected by it, according to those interviewed.
“I don't foresee any day to day difference, however, with any new regulations there are sure to be a few hiccups here and there,” said Amanda Ostrander-Serock, Director of Personnel and Public Affairs for Radnor Township.
“…For the most part we are all well trained and it should be working as smoothly as it was in the past,” said Ostrander-Serock, who has been appointed the township’s Right to Know officer – a position mandated by the law.
As Right to Know officer, she is responsible for receiving submitted requests, directing them to other people if necessary, tracking the progress in responding to the requests, issuing interim and final responses, and maintaining a file of all open records requests.
In 2008 Ostrander-Serock processed the 184 Right to Know requests that came through the township. So far this year she has received two, she said last week.
Two is the total number of official Right to Know requests that neighboring Tredyffrin Township received in all of 2008, according to its township manager Mimi Gleason, who added that the staff receive informal requests for information on a near-daily basis.
(Also by comparison, Lower Merion Township handled 16 records requests in 2008.)
“We sort of have a different philosophy” from others, said Tredyffrin’s solicitor Tom Hogan. “Tredyffrin runs a very open government, both for the prior and the new law. We usually exceed the law in granting access to documents.”
Informally asking for and granting records is easier for both staff members and the public, he said.
Hogan pointed to both Tredyffrin’s Board of Supervisors and Gleason, saying that they promote the “open” attitude that also runs through the township staff.
And as a former federal prosecutor, “I think [the public] should have absolute access to just about everything,” he said.
But most everyone agrees that there are a number of facts that shouldn’t be open to the public, many having to do with personnel matters.
Even under the new law, there is a list of 30 exceptions to what constitutes an open record.
In December, the Radnor Township School District Board of School Directors adopted its own policy, which was partly constructed from a sample policy written by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and which explicitly lists 25 of the exceptions.
But some of those exceptions, like “certain employee information” and “certain library records” are vague.
The school district’s solicitor Michael Puppio agrees, and said that exceptions like the one on “pre-decisional deliberation” are complex and will eventually come to litigation somewhere.
“Someone’s going to litigate it,” he said, adding that vague clauses in laws are litigated and eventually provide guidelines.
(Salaries of public employees indeed became open after litigation, he said.)
Puppio said that he doesn’t think the new law will necessarily cause additional litigation in Radnor, but it will somewhere prompt “guidepost litigation” where a court will interpret what the legislature meant.
Appeals to denials of open records will, under the new law, be considered not in local Courts of Common Pleas but in the newly created Office of Open Records, which also provides advisory opinions of interpretations of the law.
The final determination by the office may be appealed through a petition for review to the Commonwealth Court.
The new review process will provide a statewide level of consistency that has been lacking, Puppio said.
Gone is the “unwieldy” process and inconsistent rulings from judges in the Court of Common Pleas, Tredyffrin’s Hogan said.
(In next week’s issue of Suburban Life read about Radnor Township resident Judy Sherry’s Right to Know petition, which is stuck for the foreseeable future in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas.)
In preparation for the new open records law taking effect, the local municipalities and school districts crafted and adopted their own policies and took the required steps of creating a presence on its web sites, developing a request form, and posting contact information for the state’s Office of Open Records and identifying the in-house open records officer.
To be sure, there will be hiccups. Even some members of the Radnor Township School District’s Board of School Directors stated at their meeting in December that they wanted to send the proposed policy back to the committee level.
Instead, board president Steve Gerber encouraged the board to pass the policy, which it did.
Asked whether it will now be reviewed, Gerber said, “I think were going to see how it goes, and it will go back as needed and as things develop.”
