Do You Know About Your Right To Know?

As Tuesday’s primaries come closer, voters have become more exposed to an issue thrown around by local officials, an issue of governmental transparency.

Governmental transparency outlines the ability of citizens, and sometimes local officials to gain access to a variety of documents, contracts, and communications between those whom they elected.

This ‘governmental transparency’ term has often been used as yet another campaign bullet point – whether stated directly or indirectly. The following below is a basic review of the direct law in question, its history, and its challenges to become streamlined throughout our Lower Bucks County area.

A Brief History: 

In 2005, at 2:30 am, after a holiday weekend, Governor Edward Rendell authorized an unscheduled cost of living adjustment without the opportunity for immediate public comment. In the emergence of public outcry, Gov. Rendell appealed the act, and made modifications to the existing Pennsylvania Right to Know Law of 1957. These modifications became known as simply, Pennsylvania’s RTKL, which was signed in February of 2008, and enacted in January of 2009.

The Right to Know Law as it Relates to Websites: 

In Section 504, titled ‘Regulations and Policies’, the law states than “(a) An agency may promulgate regulations and policies necessary for the agency to implement this act. The Office of

Open Records may promulgate regulations relating to appeals involving a Commonwealth agency or local agency. (b) The following information shall be posted at each agency and, if the agency maintains an Internet website, on the agency’s Internet website. (1) Contact information for the open-records officer. (2) Contact info for the Office of Open Records or other applicable appeals officer. (3) A form which may be used to file a request. (4) Regulations, policies and procedures of the agency relating to this act.”

According to this new modified law, each Commonwealth agency, local agency, judicial agency and legislative agency is required to designate an open-records officer who shall respond to requests made by any citizen, and provide public records to those who requested such. This open-records officer may not deny a requester access to the record due to the intended use of such. The goal of this law is to keep government decisions at the hands of the public- making it smart and convenient for them to stay alert and educated on important issues involving their state, region, and township- preventing future scandals like the “COLA scandal” of 2005. In addition RTKL information is to be listed on agency websites (if an agency website exists), which is the specific scope of this review.

Review: 

LevittownNow.com in its mission to hold all accountable- visited websites throughout our coverage areas over a 36-hour period from April 30-May 1, to identify whether RTKL contact information was available for both the municipality and school districts across the area. These include: Middletown Township, Neshaminy School District, Langhorne Borough, Langhorne Manor, Penndel Borough, Falls Township, Pennsbury School District, Bristol Township, Bristol Township School District, Bristol Borough, Bristol Borough School District and Tullytown Borough.

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Click to access RTK-Spreadsheet-Final.pdf

Throughout our review of 12 specific agency websites, Bristol Township School District as well as the Bristol Borough School District had not provided RTKL information, despite the law being active for over four years. Bristol Borough had just listed the name of their officer and that officer’s contact information on their website as of May 1. The information can now be found in the contact us  area of their site.

Nathan Byerly, deputy director of the office of open records (OOR), said, “All governmental agencies, municipalities, etc… are supposed to have their RTKL information available on their websites. The website should also include who that Right to Know officer is,” he said, “and how each citizen can contact them.”

When asked if the OOR tracks whether each governmental agency or municipality has the legally required information on their websites, he said, “We don’t have the resources or the staff for that at this time, but often that information is sent in to us.”

According to the OOR website, RTKL information is updated twice weekly as registrations come in.

Byerly did say in defense of small governmental agencies that because they get so few RTKL requests, they often forget they need to have such information available, stating “It’s not the thing first and foremost in their minds because there are so many other tasks and requirements their jobs require.”

Bristol Borough School District Superintendent, Greg Wright, pointed out that as a result of a recent RTKL request by Bristol Borough Councilman Tony Devine people now know who the RTKL officer is and how they can access information, although the law explicitly states that information needs to be on the agencies website allowing access to information which can be provided to citizens outside of the Bristol Borough School District circle.

Wright said he would look in to the issue and have the site updated as soon as possible.

Bristol Township School District Director of Public Relations Eileen Kelliher said, “We will change that,” and offered no further comment.

BTSD’s website was updated on May 16 to include the contact information of Alison Buchan, a personnel coordinator as their Open Records Officer to comply with ‘Federal RTKL’ and the ‘Sunshine Act’.

The district added contact information for Buchan as part of the update. The Federal RTKL differs greatly from the State of Pennsylvania’s RTKL. Federal RTKL was developed to provide information and protect workers from hazardous conditions at the work place. The Sunshine Act is a law enacted in 1976 which states that ‘every portion of every meeting of an agency shall be open to public observation’.

You can view BTSD’s effort to comply here.

In addition to the above, the OOR has a listing of RTKL officers and contact information for those agencies information sent in to the OOR; however it must be noted, in some cases, one element of the contact information is missing. Case in point, Falls Township, as required, identifies Township Manager Peter Gray as its OOR officer, but on the OOR website, under officer for the township, there is no listing.

One of the inherent issues that has been said with the law itself, is the act doesn’t specifically state, where on an agency website the RTKL information should be located.

One has to question how accessible governmental information is, if you can’t locate the contact information for the person responsible for such requests.

The intent of the act was to make it easier for the public to gain access to information they have  a legally sanctioned access to, not to have contact information buried somewhere on a website, where someone might not be able to locate it.

In an age where the word transparency is often thrown around with the ease of a penny, locating basic governmental information, like who in a given municipality is the open records officer, and where to send a RTKL request, is the most basic element in streamlining agency transparency for the public.

Byerly, who said OOR is understaffed and has a modest budget, doesn’t have the resources or staffing to keep up with appeals at times, he hopes Governor Corbett will increase the overall budget for the state funded agency.  “The OOR, once it makes a determination on an appeal, doesn’t have the authority to legally enforce its rulings, only the courts or the PA legislature through new law have the authority to enforce rulings by the OOR,” Byerly said.

Current:                                                              

The Pennsylvania Senate is reviewing a bill that would alter the RTKL in ways that will increase its transparency, according to a press release by Pennsylvania Senate Republicans.  The legislation introduced by Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-9) seeks to address compliance issues for state agencies and help clarify and expand the types of records that are available to the public.

An issue of  concern raised in The Senate State Government Committee hearing earlier this week, about SB 444 , goes straight to the heart about access to public records that has caught the attention of the media in the state It’s relation to the ability for the public to have access to governmental records is a section of the proposed legislation allowing agencies to turn down requests they see as taxing on them.

OOR Executive director Terry Mutchler told Philly.com  that SB 444 would give agencies and local governments too much latitude to skirt the law’s intent.

Transparency of the people and for the people is an essential part of a democratic government, the ability to hide, bury, information pertinent to the proper running of government is required to for the people to be informed of the functions of a given public entity.  RTKL provides citizens with a tool to evaluate, observe, read and learn about the functions of public government, and that should never be impeded upon.

(It should be noted that the compilation of all12 entities into the above spreadsheet was listed entirely at random)

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Click to access pa_righttoknowlaw.pdf