Iowa Public Information Board backs off proposed rule change

Iowa Public Data Board emblem. (Picture through Iowa Public Data Board web site)

The Iowa Public Data Board is backing off a proposed rule change that might have required authorities companies to no less than acknowledge a public-records request inside two enterprise days.

The board had proposed the brand new rule after fielding complaints from Iowans about authorities companies that don’t acknowledge, not to mention fulfill, formal requests for entry to public information, based on the board’s government director, Margaret Johnson.

“We’ve got had an growing variety of complaints filed with our workplace the place there’s no response again (from the federal government company),” Johnson advised the Iowa Legislature’s Administrative Guidelines Assessment Committee on July 19. “Somebody makes a document request after which hears nothing. After which, after a time period, (they) file a criticism with us. After which we’re (listening to explanations) like, ‘Oh, we didn’t understand we wanted to allow them to know we don’t have any of these information,’ or, ‘It went to the incorrect place,’ or any variety of different causes … It does delay that document requester’s capability know what’s happening.”

Nonetheless, after listening to from authorities companies that object to a rule requiring a response inside two enterprise days, the Iowa Public Data Board employees is now inclined to “simply kind of let this die,” Johnson advised the committee.

“We’re not eager to go ahead,” she mentioned, including that the total Iowa Public Data Board has but to weigh in on the matter, however will possible achieve this in August or September.

The draft guidelines have been meant to make clear the timeframe for the authorized requirement that companies reply “promptly” to public information requests. Some state companies — in addition to the governor’s workplace, which isn’t topic to IPIB oversight — have taken weeks or months to acknowledge requests for data.

In some situations, the requested information are by no means offered and no authorized rationale for the denial is given, making it troublesome for members of the general public to problem the legality of the company’s actions.

The Iowa County Attorneys Affiliation advised the board earlier this month that the rule change would create two requirements for compliance with open information requests. Members of the general public who take their complaints to the Iowa Public Data Board might cite non-compliance with the two-day rule, whereas residents who bypass the board and go on to court docket with their criticism could be unable to take action for the reason that rule just isn’t codified in Iowa regulation.

The Iowa State Affiliation of Counties advised the board the two-day rule could be “overly burdensome and unworkable” for a lot of authorities entities.

The Iowa Affiliation of Municipal Utilities additionally objected, telling IPIB that nothing in Chapter 22 of the Code of Iowa — often known as the Open Data Regulation — “imposes an acknowledgment requirement on municipalities.” The regulation, the affiliation mentioned, “expressly contemplates that every municipality will determine for itself the way to obtain and course of open information requests.”

The Iowa League of Cities advised IPIB many small Iowa cities have “restricted employees that work restricted hours” throughout the week. “Given present staffing ranges in lots of communities, it will be unreasonable to anticipate a response from town inside two enterprise days,” the affiliation advised the board.

Johnson and the Administrative Guidelines Assessment Committee didn’t handle a separate difficulty that open-government advocates have raised in reference to the proposed new guidelines.

As written, the principles would add a broad, new rationale for presidency companies to quote as a justifiable purpose in delaying the achievement of a request for public paperwork: “Unexpected circumstances.”

Randy Evans of the Iowa Freedom of Data Council just lately advised the board that this “catch-all” phrase represents “a transparent growth of the explanations authorities officers could delay making information obtainable. Such an growth of the authorized justifications for such a delay must be made by the Iowa Common Meeting via an modification to Chapter 22, as an alternative of by an administrative rule written by the Iowa Public Data Board.

This text first appeared in Iowa Capital Dispatch.