The County must comply with a Right-to-Know request for employee attendance records, the state Office of Open Records has ruled. The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records ruled this week that Bucks County must make public attendance records of county employees who swipe their identification cards to enter the courthouse.
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The Pocono Record's fight for documents held by the nonprofit once run by the man accused in the sex-and-scholarship scandal at East Stroudsburg University reached the state's second-highest court Monday. Read More…

York County President Judge Richard K. Renn ruled Thursday the county is in compliance with the commonwealth's Right-To-Know law when it refuses to release addresses in emergency time response logs. Read More…

The Daily & Sunday Review will not appeal further the denial by the state of the newspaper's right-to-know law request for access to the "inappropriate material" found two years ago on computers used by Bradford County Common Pleas President Judge Jeffrey Smith.
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SHARON —The legal fight put up by the Sharon Sanitary Authority to keep a Herald reporter from reviewing delinquent sewer accounts is “alarming and unreasonable,” Herald attorney William G. McConnell said in a document recently filed in Mercer County Common Pleas Court. Read More…

A Monroe County judge overturned two rulings made by the state's new Office of Open Records, which will keep information about the paychecks of public employees and pre-meeting materials out of view. Read More…

Bradford County President Judge Jeffrey Smith has hired a private attorney to fight The Review's effort to inspect the non-judicial content of a copy of the hard drives on computers he used. Read More…

A Mercer County Common Pleas Court judge next week will hear the appeal of the Sharon Sanitary Authority regarding the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records ruling that they must allow The Herald to inspect delinquent sewer accounts. Read More…

The state Office of Open Records has ruled a Dunmore councilwoman must turn over e-mail correspondence between herself and other council members regarding the former borough manager. Read More…

The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records ruled Sept. 21 that the City of McKeesport is required to provide the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with documents and information surrounding an investigation into allegations of officers stealing money from the police department. Read More…

Former News-Item and Patriot News reporter David DeKok has written a revised and updated book about the mine fire in Centralia that details the relocation of residents, demolition of most of the town and the resistance of a few diehards. "Pennsylvania's new Open Records Act, which took effect at the beginning of 2009, greatly aided my research," DeKok said. Read More…

Newly released 911 audio recordings show that three callers reported a vehicle that had crashed in February off the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, leading to the death of a Taylor man. Read More…

The mountain of trash at the Chrin Bros. Sanitary Landfill and other contentious issues in Williams Township have spurred the growth of another mountain -- one of open record requests. Read More…

The York Township board of commissioners voted Tuesday to appeal a landmark decision from the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, but attached one proviso -- taxpayers won't foot the bill. Read More…

HARVEYS LAKE - General Municipal Authority of Harveys Lake board members, stunned by allegations of questionable purchases by authority employees, vowed to investigate.
Councilman Charles Musial, who is also a police officer, revealed to the board at Wednesday's meeting that, acting on queries by residents about their sewer fees, he filed a Right-to-Know-Act request on authority records for 2007-08 and also did some research on his own. Musial said he was acting as a civilian and had to pay the municipal authority $150 for the records. Read More…

The former director of the York School of Technology is still on the payroll. James A. Kraft, who resigned June 30, is entitled to full salary and benefits until the end of March 2010 as part of an agreement that stemmed from "disputes" between the school and Kraft, according to the agreement he signed June 19. The settlement agreement was obtained by the Daily Record/Sunday News after a right-to-know request. Read More…

Carroll Citizens for Sensible Growth has appealed to the Office of Open Records to obtain stormwater and traffic study information on a new set of plans for the Village at South Mountain submitted to Carroll Township by Dillsburg Ventures, LLC. Read More…

HARRISBURG - The state Senate has released a list of 66 contracts and leases that will be posted soon on the Treasury contracts Web site to comply with the state open-records law. Read More…

NORRISTOWN — In a victory for public information, an officer from the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records granted an appeal from a Times Herald reporter seeking documents that were originally denied for release from a Montgomery County authority. Read More…

For decades, attorneys who work part-time for Luzerne County or Luzerne County courts have been provided health insurance benefits or payment in lieu of benefits. Who are they? How many? What's the cost? We can't tell you that, thanks to a county lawsuit aimed at blocking the newspaper from reviewing health-insurance documents.
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When Pat Barget requested a copy of the South Eastern School District proposed budget in May, she was denied. The budget was due to be approved by the school district by June 30, but the documents Barget wanted were draft records, not subject to the state's Right-to-Know law, the district wrote back. "It would be a disservice to the community and to the District, to provide information that is a draft document," the district's refusal letter read. The state Office of Open Records disagreed. Read More…

HARRISBURG -- The slow process this week of obtaining copies of leases for state Sen. Robert Mellow's district office highlighted the inefficiency of the Senate's process compared to that of the House of Representatives. Read More…

The York Daily Record/Sunday News and York County are headed to court over the newspaper's request for what the state deems a public record: 911 time-response logs. Read More…

York County's refusal to release addresses or locations along with dispatch and arrival times of emergency responders is not an attempt to stop the York Daily Record/Sunday News from reviewing that data, county solicitor Michael Flannelly said Friday. Read More…

A Delaware County Court of Common Pleas judge ordered that a Right to Know case between a citizen and the Radnor Township School District be settled. Read More…

The company hired to manage Wachovia Arena has provided a complete copy of its management contract that guarantees the company a minimum of $2 million over the next 10 years. Read More…

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Tens of millions of tax dollars that support Pennsylvania lawmakers' favored causes are directed by legislative leaders through a secretive process that appears to benefit some leaders' constituents the most, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. Read More…

The Shenandoah Valley school board never voted on the policy used to keep a Republican-Herald reporter out of Shenandoah Valley High School’s 2009 graduation ceremony, according to an open records request response received by the newspaper Wednesday. Read More…

The board that oversees Wachovia Arena last week refused to release the financial terms of a new contract for management of the facility, and attorneys disagree on the legality of the decision. Read More…

The Chester Community Charter School has filed a court appeal to a recent Pennsylvania Office of Open Records ruling that gave The Inquirer access to a wide range of financial records from the management company that operates the school. Read More…

The state Office of Open Records ruled recently that publicly released time response logs from York County's 911 Center must include where police or fire units were headed when they were dispatched. The office made the ruling Friday in response to an appeal by the York Daily Record/Sunday News. More than two months ago, the Daily Record/Sunday News asked the county for the logs with addresses. Read More…

Luzerne County claims federal law prevents the disclosure of who gets health-care benefits from the county and how much a county employee’s benefits actually cost. In denying a right-to-know request from The Citizens’ Voice, the county right-to-know officer cited the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Read More…

The York City School Board voted 5-4 to pull the receipts for expenditures during an April trip to San Diego for further review. The board was made aware of how the money was spent on the trip because of a Daily Record/Sunday News article, written after he receipts were obtained through a Right-to-Know request. Read More…

Four York City School Board members spent about $2,000, mostly on food and cabs, at a seminar in California last month -- and that sum does not include air fare, hotels, conference fees and a fifth board member's expenses, according to receipts for the expenditures obtained through a Right to Know request. Read More…

EAST STROUDSBURG — One resident of East Stroudsburg Area School District wanted to see the internal investigation into how the district sold a classroom trailer on eBay for $1. An aspiring school board member for that district requested all the correspondence between administrators and board members from this year. A sitting board member asked to receive complete copies of legal bills.

These are some of the requests that reflect a flurry of activity sparked by the state's newly robust Right to Know Law. Since the beginning of the year, requests have been peppering the area's four school districts. Read More…

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP, April 27) - Newly disclosed correspondence between Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and lobbyists from last year shows he received particular pressure regarding a property assessment bill he eventually vetoed and a stalled proposal to extend health coverage to more of the uninsured. Read More…

If state residents want to know if their local fire companies, police departments and EMS agencies are responding promptly to emergencies, Pennsylvania's new Right-to-Know law gives them the right. Residents can request time response logs from their county 911 center, which would help them determine if agencies arrived in a timely fashion, officials say. But that's not the case in York County, because of how the county defines a time response log. Read More…

A York Township commissioner presented a plan during the board of commissioners' meeting Tuesday night that would allow the township to publish the names of people who make Right-to-Know requests. Read More…

For some Radnor residents, the controversy surrounding the township manager and his salary bonuses wasn't as troubling as the widespread news coverage. Unaccustomed in many ways to the glare of publicity, they are questioning how open township business should really be. Read More…

Radnor Township's Board of Commissioners voted unanimously last night to suspend Bashore and request his resignation after the recent discovery that he had distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses - $141,500 for himself - then allegedly attempted to cover his trail by falsifying financial documents. Read More…

Imagine a job that includes a six-figure salary, a generous benefits package, an interest-free loan for a new house, an SUV for personal use and the ability to award yourself no-questions-asked bonuses every year. Welcome to Dave Bashore's world. Bashore's contract and other previously undisclosed documents were pried loose in recent months by residents who filed records requests under Pennsylvania's Right to Know Law, which was strengthened this year. Read More…

Michael Hershock was given an ultimatum Friday to resign or be fired from what is perhaps the most lucrative part-time job in state government. The president and CEO of the nonprofit Pennsylvania Higher Education Foundation chose to be fired over a dispute about travel expenses. Foundation board members became aware of the expenses when they reviewed records requested by The Patriot-News through the state's new Right to Know Law. Read More…

RADNOR — It appears David A. Bashore’s days as township manager are numbered. Whether he will face criminal prosecution for allegedly awarding hefty bonuses to himself and about 30 other township employees without the approval of the board of commissioners remains to be seen. A string of public record requests uncovered Bashore’s employment contract, signed in 2001, which included a $175,000 interest-free loan he used to purchase a home in the 200 block of Spruce Tree Road. Read More…

The Radnor Township School District has released two sets of documents that it has maintained for nearly two years were not public records. Read More…

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board canceled an investigation of its own employees over suspected press leaks the same day The Morning Call formally asked about it. Read More…

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's Department of Health is sending warnings to establishments that may have violated the new statewide ban on smoking in most public places, a newspaper reported Thursday. Read More…

The Patriot-News has filed a right-to-know request to obtain how much money in permit fees Halifax Township has collected from developers since a 2005 ordinance was passed, Read More…