House Republican and Democratic lawmakers in New Mexico have been gathering in closed-door committee and subcommittee meetings over the last two weeks to discuss how to allocate more than $6 billion in state money, without the public scrutiny that comes with most committee hearings.
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Read More… from New Mexico open-government group questions secret budget talks
Flooded with requests for public records, local officials in Washington want to put limits on how much information public servants have to make available to the public.
The concepts have long been enshrined in Washington state law:
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Read More… from ‘Abusive’ info requests lead to push for less government transparency in Washington
Should we charge a toll when a Manchester resident wants to walk into City Hall?
Manchester Rep. Patrick Long wants to increase the cost of open government by allowing public officials to charge people directly for doing their jobs.
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Read More… from Editorial: At what price? Increasing cost of open government in New Hampshire
The group that represents Vermont towns and cities would like to loosen the government’s public records and open meeting laws — but make nonprofit organizations subject to the same transparency requirements as the government.
The group envisions several changes to transparency laws in its 2016 Municipal Policy, the document that guides the group’s lobbying at the Statehouse this year.
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Read More… from Vermont towns seek changes to open government laws
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has announced the relaunch of a newly designed state open government website.
By visiting the online public data portal, www.NYOpenGovernment.com, users will be able to tract more easily what issues lobbyists and their clients are advocating, and how they result in specific legislation.
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DC Council members David Grosso and Mary Cheh Tuesday introduced a sweeping set of measures to improve open government laws in the District of Columbia. Council member Anita Bonds also cosponsored the bill, the “Strengthening Transparency and Open Access to Government Amendment Act of 2016.”
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Read More… from DCOGC welcomes DC Council bill to improve open government laws
Wisconsin officials backed away Thursday from a move to cut back on record-keeping requirements amid a backlash by open government advocates.
The board that oversees state public records will instead revisit its August vote changing the definition of so-called transitory records, such as texts and other messages deemed to have only temporary value. Gov. Scott Walker's administration has used the changes to deny requests for text messages and records of visits to the governor's mansion.
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Read More… from Wisconsin board backs away from open records rule changes
Jeffco’s five new school board members will take about two hours at their next meeting to hear legal advice on “the Colorado Open Meetings Law, the Colorado Open Records Act, conflicts of interest and standards of conduct for local public officials.”
The sunshine-law training will be held behind closed doors in an executive session.
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Read More… from Colorado school board to get sunshine law training — in secret
Over the past year, the openness community has joined privacy and civil liberties groups in fighting the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), legislation that undermines transparency and enhances surveillance while doing little to improve the government’s ability to combat cyber threats.
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Read More… from New Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act being drafted in secret
For close to a decade Jeff Lewis has been working on Augusta's city website and keeping up with the fast changing world of technology to make it more convenient for you.
"As far as paying bills, looking up documents records," IT department employee Jeff Lewis said.
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Read More… from Augusta’s IT Department awarded for work to provide government transparency
