Public notices could find new homes in print, online.
May 14, 2009 Government transparency | SB 419 Public Notice Act | HB 795 Legal Notices Act | HB 677 | Public notice law
By Erin Halasz
Staff Reporter
Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (May 14) - Local governments have long posted ads about home foreclosures, school board meetings, contract bids and other public issues in daily or weekly newspapers, but new laws under consideration by the state Legislature could change that, allowing municipalities to use other media to publicize their activities.
Legislators in the state House and Senate have introduced bills aimed at revising the law requiring county and local governments to issue public notices in newspapers. Currently, government notices must be published in what the law calls “newspapers of general circulation,” which are newspapers that are sold at least once a week, intended for the general public and sold at a fixed price. Free publications do not qualify.
County and local governments can and often do advertise in other venues, including on the radio, online and in trade publications, but they must also place all public notices in a newspaper.
The new proposals have drawn spirited debate about government transparency, responsible spending of taxpayer money and the fate of newspapers in the Internet age.
Two bills, House Bill 795 and Senate Bill 419, would allow municipalities to place public notices, also known as legal advertisements, on their websites instead of in newspapers.
Advocates of this approach say it would increase transparency and accessibility while also providing citizens a way to search for the notices most relevant to them.
“All the municipalities in my district already have a website,” said Rep. Barbara McIlvaine Smith, D-Chester, sponsor of House Bill 795. “Instead of paying ad fees… they could post legal advertisements on their own website” where residents could find them at any time, not just on the day the ads are posted.
Smith plans to offer an amendment to the bill that would require municipal websites to incorporate subscription services, known as RSS feeds, which allow users to sign up for email and other types of alerts when new information is added to a site. This way, interested observers could find out what their local governments are up to without paging through the classified section every day.
Smith said she frequently visits her town’s website to find out about local goings-on, but “I’ve never known a constituent to buy a newspaper to find out about a legal advertisement.”
For newspaper representatives, moving public notices from newspapers to municipal websites could prevent some people from finding out about government postings, especially poorer people who can’t afford Internet service and older people who may not know how to use computers.
“While Internet notice can and should supplement public notices published in newspapers, it cannot supplant it in today’s society,” said Martin Till, chairman of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association’s government affairs committee, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. “There are still too many without Internet access, and there are still too many issues regarding accuracy, archiving and permanency of Internet records.”
The two proposals would require governments to provide a phone number constituents could call to find out about upcoming events and also advertise the location of a free, public computer with Internet access. Advocates of the proposals said this would help resolve access issues.
Also, people would have to visit multiple websites to find out about all the school board meetings, sheriff’s sales and other public events taking place in their towns, Till said. Each government entity would have its own site, and people would have to visit them all to find out everything going on in their communities.
Most of Pennsylvania’s daily newspapers already post their public notices on a website called MyPublicNotices.com, Till said. There, users can search for public notices by date, type of notice, keyword and newspaper.
The newspapers that use the service pay about $8 per notice to post to the site, and many do not charge government advertisers extra for the service.
Many papers also post the notices on their own websites.
Till and other newspaper-industry representatives also questioned a proposal to allow local governments to post public notices in print publications other than pay-to-purchase newspapers.
The bill, House Bill 677, would include free community newspapers, newsletters and even some advertising mailers on the approved list of publications so long as they are at least four pages long, have been in print for at least six months and are widely available to the general public.
Rep. Mario Scavello, R-Monroe and the bill’s sponsor, said he plans to offer an amendment that requires governments to post the notices on their websites as well.
Scavello said allowing counties, school boards and other government entities to choose from an array of advertising options would increase the circulation of their notices while also saving taxpayers money.
Monroe County spends about $750,000 a year on ads in newspapers that reach about 18,000 people, he said, but free, community papers such as the Pocono Plateau have much wider circulations with far cheaper ad rates.
“It comes down to dollars and cents,” Scavello said. “It’s big money. It’s taxpayers’ money.”
Community newspaper advocate Jim Haigh agreed, saying free community newsletters and advertising mailers like the ones he represents have a greater circulation than mainstream newspapers.
Haigh also accused newspapers of price gouging, saying their rates for government notices are far higher than for commercial customers.
The reason, he said, is because government entities are required to buy newspaper ad space, even as newspapers are going out of business and shedding customers nationwide. That means the remaining papers have a sort of monopoly on government ads, Haigh said.
Revenue from public notices makes up about 7 percent of revenue for Trib Total Media, said Ralph Martin, the company’s president and CEO. Trib Total Media owns and publishes the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and other print and online media sources in the Pittsburgh area.
Decreasing that revenue stream would not cripple the company, Martin said, but the loss would be painful.
Till, who is CEO of Easton Publishing, which publishes the Express-Times and other newspapers, said the revenue loss would lead to job losses.
“It depends how fast our auto dealers come back,” said Till. “Newspapers are not the only ones hurting economically right now.”
Martin and Till said the cost savings associated with online or non-newspaper print ads were overstated because legislators were not accounting for the additional server space and staff required to administer online public notices.
They also said the newspaper industry is planning to propose a revision to the state law capping ad rates for government agencies at the lowest published commercial rates.
For Rep. Glen Grell, R-Cumberland, that is the least the newspapers could do.
“You and your members are not hesitant to criticize us for wasting taxpayer dollars,” Grell said. “But if the municipality is paying $300 for a two-inch ad, and the local car dealership is paying $10 for the same thing, that is wasting taxpayer dollars.”
Staff Reporter
Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (May 14) - Local governments have long posted ads about home foreclosures, school board meetings, contract bids and other public issues in daily or weekly newspapers, but new laws under consideration by the state Legislature could change that, allowing municipalities to use other media to publicize their activities.
Legislators in the state House and Senate have introduced bills aimed at revising the law requiring county and local governments to issue public notices in newspapers. Currently, government notices must be published in what the law calls “newspapers of general circulation,” which are newspapers that are sold at least once a week, intended for the general public and sold at a fixed price. Free publications do not qualify.
County and local governments can and often do advertise in other venues, including on the radio, online and in trade publications, but they must also place all public notices in a newspaper.
The new proposals have drawn spirited debate about government transparency, responsible spending of taxpayer money and the fate of newspapers in the Internet age.
Two bills, House Bill 795 and Senate Bill 419, would allow municipalities to place public notices, also known as legal advertisements, on their websites instead of in newspapers.
Advocates of this approach say it would increase transparency and accessibility while also providing citizens a way to search for the notices most relevant to them.
“All the municipalities in my district already have a website,” said Rep. Barbara McIlvaine Smith, D-Chester, sponsor of House Bill 795. “Instead of paying ad fees… they could post legal advertisements on their own website” where residents could find them at any time, not just on the day the ads are posted.
Smith plans to offer an amendment to the bill that would require municipal websites to incorporate subscription services, known as RSS feeds, which allow users to sign up for email and other types of alerts when new information is added to a site. This way, interested observers could find out what their local governments are up to without paging through the classified section every day.
Smith said she frequently visits her town’s website to find out about local goings-on, but “I’ve never known a constituent to buy a newspaper to find out about a legal advertisement.”
For newspaper representatives, moving public notices from newspapers to municipal websites could prevent some people from finding out about government postings, especially poorer people who can’t afford Internet service and older people who may not know how to use computers.
“While Internet notice can and should supplement public notices published in newspapers, it cannot supplant it in today’s society,” said Martin Till, chairman of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association’s government affairs committee, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. “There are still too many without Internet access, and there are still too many issues regarding accuracy, archiving and permanency of Internet records.”
The two proposals would require governments to provide a phone number constituents could call to find out about upcoming events and also advertise the location of a free, public computer with Internet access. Advocates of the proposals said this would help resolve access issues.
Also, people would have to visit multiple websites to find out about all the school board meetings, sheriff’s sales and other public events taking place in their towns, Till said. Each government entity would have its own site, and people would have to visit them all to find out everything going on in their communities.
Most of Pennsylvania’s daily newspapers already post their public notices on a website called MyPublicNotices.com, Till said. There, users can search for public notices by date, type of notice, keyword and newspaper.
The newspapers that use the service pay about $8 per notice to post to the site, and many do not charge government advertisers extra for the service.
Many papers also post the notices on their own websites.
Till and other newspaper-industry representatives also questioned a proposal to allow local governments to post public notices in print publications other than pay-to-purchase newspapers.
The bill, House Bill 677, would include free community newspapers, newsletters and even some advertising mailers on the approved list of publications so long as they are at least four pages long, have been in print for at least six months and are widely available to the general public.
Rep. Mario Scavello, R-Monroe and the bill’s sponsor, said he plans to offer an amendment that requires governments to post the notices on their websites as well.
Scavello said allowing counties, school boards and other government entities to choose from an array of advertising options would increase the circulation of their notices while also saving taxpayers money.
Monroe County spends about $750,000 a year on ads in newspapers that reach about 18,000 people, he said, but free, community papers such as the Pocono Plateau have much wider circulations with far cheaper ad rates.
“It comes down to dollars and cents,” Scavello said. “It’s big money. It’s taxpayers’ money.”
Community newspaper advocate Jim Haigh agreed, saying free community newsletters and advertising mailers like the ones he represents have a greater circulation than mainstream newspapers.
Haigh also accused newspapers of price gouging, saying their rates for government notices are far higher than for commercial customers.
The reason, he said, is because government entities are required to buy newspaper ad space, even as newspapers are going out of business and shedding customers nationwide. That means the remaining papers have a sort of monopoly on government ads, Haigh said.
Revenue from public notices makes up about 7 percent of revenue for Trib Total Media, said Ralph Martin, the company’s president and CEO. Trib Total Media owns and publishes the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and other print and online media sources in the Pittsburgh area.
Decreasing that revenue stream would not cripple the company, Martin said, but the loss would be painful.
Till, who is CEO of Easton Publishing, which publishes the Express-Times and other newspapers, said the revenue loss would lead to job losses.
“It depends how fast our auto dealers come back,” said Till. “Newspapers are not the only ones hurting economically right now.”
Martin and Till said the cost savings associated with online or non-newspaper print ads were overstated because legislators were not accounting for the additional server space and staff required to administer online public notices.
They also said the newspaper industry is planning to propose a revision to the state law capping ad rates for government agencies at the lowest published commercial rates.
For Rep. Glen Grell, R-Cumberland, that is the least the newspapers could do.
“You and your members are not hesitant to criticize us for wasting taxpayer dollars,” Grell said. “But if the municipality is paying $300 for a two-inch ad, and the local car dealership is paying $10 for the same thing, that is wasting taxpayer dollars.”
