Nestled firmly in a bill passed last week by the Pennsylvania Senate is a long list of reporting requirements that, if passed by the House and signed by the governor, would force the University of Pittsburgh and the three other state-related universities to disclose data ranging from minutes of meetings to ratios of course credits awarded to various types of students.
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Read More… from Bill to broaden state open records law passes PA Senate
There are a lot of problems with the latest attempt to update Pennsylvania’s Right to Know law, which the Senate unanimously passed on Wednesday. Fortunately, the House has a chance to fix the defects and make the open-records law stronger.
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Read More… from Editorial: Pennsylvania House must fix the Senate public records bill
A bill that would change Pennsylvania's Right to Know law to require additional disclosures for state-related universities and curb some records access for prison inmates passed the Senate in a unanimous vote Wednesday.
The bill makes a number of changes to the law, including three key revisions. Continue…
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Read More… from Pennsylvania Senate approves open records changes
On one of the otherwise bare walls of John Quigley's office hangs a banner: "Bureau of Integrity & Transparency."
The Department of Environmental Protection secretary makes a point of mentioning it to his visitors on the 16th floor of the Rachel Carson Building in Harrisburg. Continue…
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Read More… from DEP recordkeeping needs to improve, Pennsylvania officials say
HARRISBURG — The state’s Office of Open Records has ruled that government agencies are not permitted to charge fees if people requesting public records wish to use their smartphones to photograph the records they are examining.
The ruling, issued Friday, concerned a case in Reserve. Continue>>>
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Read More… from Pennsylvania: Phones OK’d to photograph public records
Here's something that ought to earn the Sunlight Foundation several shots of Pappy Van Winkle: a new open data tool that makes it easier than ever to have a look at the inner workings of Pennsylvania's state legislature.
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Read More… from Follow the PA General Assembly with this open data tool
A ruling from the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records has thrown a new monkey wrench into the ongoing dispute over Right to Know requests in Centre County.
In May, Centre County Public Defender David Crowley submitted a RTK request seeking phone records of contact between District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller and Judge Bradley Lunsford – but that request was denied. Continue>>>
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Score one for transparency.
State senators apparently have eliminated a loophole in Right-to-Know legislation that would have enabled Pennsylvania’s state-related universities to shield from the public many of their highest employee salaries. Continue>>>
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Read More… from Pa. Senate bill drops disclosure loophole for state-related universities
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection is developing several tools to make information on natural gas drilling more accessible to the public. This includes a new fracking chemical disclosure site, a web portal for information on each natural gas well, and opportunities for the public to comment on proposed DEP policies.
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Everybody says they're for transparency in government these days.
And most seem to believe the Commonwealth Court's 4-3 decision Wednesday limiting the governor's ability to change executive director's in the state Office of Open Records in mid-term as a good step for that cause.
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