 have people on the list testified today so what I'm going to do is just see who wants to testify today and make a list here and we'll just start going through it because we don't have a bill to actually respond to we're just kind of taking a general testimony I believe that we were going to do a committee bill which is on the deadline for that is this Friday to actually has to be voted out by Thursday noon so that means there isn't much time to take all the testimony and ask our council to draft it for us in a way that's thoughtful instead of rushing it through and then get testimony on the bill itself so we are going to use the S305 which is the Senator Brock's bill about non-private governmental sponsored private organizations as close as I can come to nonprofit yeah to require them to comply with public records laws we're going to use that for a vehicle to put all of our thoughts on it doesn't mean that that bill will be as it is because we'll take testimony on that bill in particular but that's that's what we're going to use so that we don't have to try to get it out of here by Friday just so that people know that that's what we're doing so from now on I guess we might as just as well put the bill number on when we're doing it which is S305 and then we can take testimony on that in particular and on anything else that we want to put in there does that make sense okay that is in our committee yeah yeah it is here all right so who who wants to testify today oh committee's over all right thank you for your attendance and your wise words of wisdom to us but okay nobody wants to testify I do but I don't have to be more prepared in the context that it was comments there do you want to testify sure okay and who nobody else has a desire to testify here on either Senator Brock's bill or the general idea or anything we have heard sure okay I thought you might we also are getting one of the things we talked about last time was records management and if you have good records management it would be easier to comply with public records requests and we said oh maybe we could have the archivist do some research on who which agencies comply which agencies have better systems and stuff turns out that she already does that so we will have this will be delivered to us from the printing office shortly so I am gonna say one we had one conversation this morning with Jeff Walens who's the director or ED or whatever he's called a VCIC and it was very interesting because we as a committee did a lot of kind of scratching our heads and trying to figure out what they charge $30 for criminal background check and most of the criminal background checks that they charge work I mean you can ask for your own your own and that's there's no charge to that and most of them are from primarily out of state companies who are doing employee background checks so we had a discussion about well should they be charging for those and what we came to the conclusion was that that's a certain charging for a service they're not charging for the record because the person if I want a criminal background check on senator Collamore I could go to every law enforcement agency in the state and I could get that free it's there's no charge for it it's there I could get that what the VCIC does is provides the service of gathering them all and giving them to you and for an employer it's a lot easier to pay $30 and to go to 85 agencies so they're paying for the service not for the the record so we I think kind of put that on the side unless anybody has any issues with that I'll start with the vehicle bill senator rocksville as most of you may know I in 2015 or so they public records request related to the health information technology plant of Vermont information technology leaders they responded that they were a nonprofit private nonprofit and not subject to the public records law yet they were commissioned and delegated by the legislature to create a health information infrastructure of medical electronic medical records over the last decade or so they spent over $50 million I wanted to know where that money went was the intellectual property preserved in their contracts with subcontractors as was required by the grant agreements with the Department of Vermont Health Access they persisted and I took them to Superior Court and it took a year or so and $15,000 and Judge Teachout ruled that subject to a three pronged test a private nonprofit can be the funk what she her decision rule that it's the functional equivalent of a state agency and they are subject to public records law it's a whole different cat or arms of whether they're subject to open reading law that needs to be addressed but I don't think we're going to have time this session to do that in this bill the $50 million in intellectual property has seems to have disappeared and I don't have the resources to try to use public records law to fish out the records from vital of where that went but when the legislature directed the Attorney General's office to acquire where did the intellectual property go they basically threw up their hands and said there is not but where it where it went that money went was to create interfaces between the health information exchange software and all the different practice management systems that the nurses and blood labs etc use so that they all can display data in a common format and that apparently was forfeited to medici which is a subsidiary of etna which is now a subsidiary of CVS so you've got it is a drug company owning an insurance company owning a medical records company and they seem to have absconded with $50 million of Vermont intellectual property that was specifically withheld in the contract the grant agreements from the Department of Vermont Health Access to Vermont Information Technology leaders so I've been trying to get the AG to look into that for years but I'm only asking for five percent ten percent if we get it back just kidding for the record Stephen Whitaker by the way for the record records management public records access I am a frequent user of the public records law I make requests mostly for the purpose of holding state officials accountable for statutory obligations like writing a telecommunications plan or making sure that when a fiber breaks due to a bridge washout that it doesn't necessarily take down state agency offices and public libraries from the internet so resiliency redundancy hardening what I frequently find is almost every request I make is now responded with we need an extra 10 days and frequently ADS for instance which has no oversight body to appeal to I've been asking since the November storm November 1st storm a fiber broke which took out state offices down in Addison County it took out public libraries which are managed by the agency of digital service for some obscure reason so Kellogg Hubbard Library lost its internet connectivity that day too but there was also a outage related to a data centered flooding the combination was a perfect storm of things went wrong that day and it hasn't yet made the press because they're withholding the records and delaying and delaying and delaying availability of those records I saw John Quinn today and asked him about him yet again so they offered $288 a fee which is significant to me I said I'll inspect them and just choose the ones I need copies of I do not want to fence front $288 for documents which might be so redacted they're useless another set of records requests are made inconsistent application of exemptions the agency's neat guidance on how to apply claims of exemption because some of the smaller phone companies are out Vermont when they have a power outage that blocks 9-1-1 service they say 26 lines or 40 lines were affected that couldn't for so many hours this number of people could not call 9-1-1 but yet consolidated communications claims that the number of lines affected which are typically much greater our example and the department in this case the 9-1-1 board just doesn't second-guess that doesn't push back the idea that we're not allowed to know how many people are affected by a 9-1-1 outage is absurd in life there's no trade secret there you know is that what they claim that it's a trade secret yes proprietary or trade secret I'm going to touch briefly on first net there's not a lot to go on there I will call your attention to a new report issued yesterday from the government accountability office which dug deep into first net's contract well the jail auditors were able to review the contract which has been secret for years none of the states which have opted in to first net as did Vermont have seen the contract nor does Vermont have any recourse if they don't adhere to the terms of that plan or contract but the auditor at GAO dug deeply into that and found that they're not complying with the terms of the contracts for scheduling for public engagement for issuing reports which were specifically required to be bi-annually released and not subject to proprietary claims so first net's a mess and Vermont needs to at the scale of Vermont element and our commitment to transparency Vermont could have a significant effect our former governor Douglas served on the national first net board for several years so we may be able to leverage that impact into turning that into a more transparent our telecommunications planning process is supposed to be transparent and engaged with the public you can't do that if you claim your entire project is secret and proprietary to AT&T and our Department of Public Safety is managing that and having meetings of subcommittees of the Governance Advisory Board which they call working groups and therefore they didn't have to adhere to open meeting law or keep minutes even though the Secretary of State clearly has stood firm that a working group is a subcommittee for prep for the purpose of open meeting law so we've got overly broad claims of exemption it's whatever AT&T chooses to say is exempt our auditor recounts this morning told me he got asked for a contract about the VTEL grant from the federal government but apparently the federal government allowed VTEL to decide what was proprietary and he got 60 or 80 or hundred and something pages of black so that's an area that really needs clarification is who decides and I would like to support the call for an ombudsman because many of the agencies know that I don't have the thousands of dollars to bring suit every time they fly in the face of the law and an ombudsman would have a greater authority to let them know that if this does have to go to court they're gonna lose you know likely lose so I I'm in support of that I did some freedom of information work in Connecticut as a project where computer maps were claimed to be exempt this is before Google Maps and the police chief was cross-examined and he said the only people who would want to computer maps would be terrorists and jewelies and I prevailed that that had to go all the way to the Supreme Court of Connecticut and I prevailed on that one so some of the agencies one here's a problem that was created by the legislature back in 2013 the finance committee passed a broadband bill creating a connectivity division the Department of Public Service already had authority to require information from the carriers for the development of a telecommunications plan that's in 202d in 202 they added a 202e and they said voluntarily provided information from the carriers can be subject to non-disclosure agreements so now here we are trying to build broadband for everyone and the only people that have any data on where the fiber is or what the claim service served addresses are is the department and they can't give it out so we've created this kind of conundrum where you got two different competing and I asked the department I did a public records request for all the records that they requested from the carriers in preparation of the 2018 draft telecommunications plan they asked for none using that to do 2d authority they used it under the 202e and they entered non-disclosure agreements so you can't really have public participation in a telecom plan so these are some of the problems but they've claimed thousands of dollars they want from me to go about redacting records that I've asked for and I just I mean if I thought y'all would be impressed with lots of redacted records I might try to you know get that redacted set just to show you how absurd it is but this is an area that the overbroad use of the 10-day extensions and then they're considering that even after the 10 days then they can start the redactions you know that the way the law reads if you ask for a 10-day extension because you need to consult other agencies under no circumstance can you extend beyond the 10 days before you make the records available whereas they're claiming 10 days to think about and talk about it and then if you cough up the money then they'll start the redactions these are areas where the the law is not working is it because the law is unclear or because it's just not being followed the laws unclear or the law could be more clear I'm not saying it's unclear and forfeiting waiving my rights to living I want to use another example that EPUC under the prior law the Department of Information and Innovation was required to write a plan annually and updated annually of every system that they intended to invest public money in and part of that planning required an assessment of the impacts on public access to the records that were going to be included in that system as well as impact on privacy of personal identifiable information to be included in that system those requirements planning requirements were unfortunately repealed last year against my better my advice and better judgment so I think I would encourage you to think carefully about reinstating plant specific planning requirements ironically the broadband bill just passed last year really tightened up the planning requirements for the 10-year telecommunications plan so that's the model I would encourage you to look at 202c under title 30 is the goals the statutory goals for our telecommunications systems and infrastructure 202d is the planning requirements intended to reach those goals so that that dual structure would be most valuable in applied to the health IT plan that's currently supervised by the Green Mountain Care Board the economic development strategy is another one the we need an I will one plan that I wonder has not been fleshed out as a system in the DII plans for years so not only did we create a new agency of digital services without having ever completed the plan to this requirements of statute we then repeal the statute entirely so all they give you is a report these are the so that's a problem but looking forward as a governance model each of these plans if you clarify the goals have the committee of jurisdiction clarify the goals for each of the plans and tighten up the planning requirements and then have a governance council make sure that those plans fit together that would be good technology governance because each one is got milestones to meet for performance every year and then did it conflict or integrate with other strategies that's enough for today so I don't want to lose your yeah and I think that getting into the planning requirements is a little sure it's a little beyond the public records but I give you one more example on the profits yes half a million dollars a year is granted by the Office of Economic Opportunity at the agency of human services to a nonprofit in Barry which is providing some level of services and oversight and management to a 34-bed shelter in Barry called Good Samaritan and seasonally from November to April a 20-bed shelter in Montpelier which does not have a year-round shelter and a 14-bed shelter in Barry the there's chronic staffing problems there are reportedly agreements made with the day shelter another way here on Barry Street that are not kept and the one of the prior staffs there told me that that resulted in two deaths there's been deaths at the Good Samaritan Haven the police chief in Barry tells me that a person who was flagged as a registered sex offender did not have to register because that's not considered an address so the very police chief would not know that a registered sex offender is in this community so but I've done public records request of the Good Samaritan shelter and they say we're gonna ignore you we don't have to are they completely funded by the state are they set up by the state they're not no they're not created by the state they are they verify one c3 they get most of their funding but the state does not dictate their governance so this is an area where we may need to start putting conditions of some dictated governance not dictated but requires legislative governance in order to make sure that those public records obligations attack I think we have on a separate conversation we've talked about some oversight over 501 c3's that we really as a state have no no oversight I know I I know some in my area that have their boards have completely violated their their personnel rules and their all their and I know others where directors have and the board just doesn't so we've talked that's a different conversation about the kind of level of oversight we see a 501 c3's I would distinguish between 501 c3's that are you know playing classical music versus ones that are providing a direct service that the government has advocated on in effect sheltering homeless people is something that the city Montpelier should be directly the recipient of that oil money and then hold the risk the managing entity to a strict oversight role but when you give the money directly to a nonprofit without triggering these accountability provisions it creates problems thank you no thank you Elizabeth Novotny for the Vermont Police Association so at 50,000 feet on public records as we move forward and I'll be happy to come back in if I have a if I have something in particular to comment on transparency is the goal of public records and it's it's also about weighing the privacy interests of of folks who deserve some consideration so in the case of law enforcement records if you are investigating a homicide case and you're interviewing three or four witnesses and they provide personal information as part of their testimony that relates to them that might be a medical issue they're talking about maybe it's cell phone information we recognize the need to protect that information because it isn't relevant to the activity of law enforcement in other words it doesn't shed that transparent light on law enforcement's activities so we try to strike that balance and I get that that is what the current law tries to do I will say that for agencies the challenge is this you know the simple public records request is fairly easy to respond to and those get taken care of but the public records law can be and I'll say this and I don't mean in a pejorative way but it can be weaponized to the extent that someone could ask for just an enormous amount of records that places an enormous burden on a small public entity and the challenge for them is how to respond it isn't that they don't want to be transparent it's that they don't have the resources to manage those kinds of records requests and so if we're going to move towards a responsive government we would ask that there be an investment whatever that looks like that allows for personal resources and advisory resources so people can in government do the right thing and in a timely manner and that takes human resources advisory resources and and in some cases equipment because it's as simple as trying to redact a document without having to run to the copy of machine three times so I would ask that whatever you're doing in the area of public records you keep that in mind and I know that you're considering potentially I don't know if this committee is considering inquests but we would like at some point the opportunity to come in and talk about the inquest proceedings will that be that can be part of your public records to request I mean public records we don't have a bill yet so we're just taking everything and if it's important then we should put it in there no I just wanted to at 50,000 feet saying that is where the tension lies that I think there are people in agencies and in public entities that want to do the right thing but they struggle with the necessary resources to be able to achieve that outcome in the way that satisfactory to everybody so how would how would you do that if you had we do you have a we have a potential pool for for example public funding for campaigns publicly funded campaigns we don't actually have the money but if somebody qualifies for it then they can access a pool of money and that pool of money in this case comes from the Secretary of State's office so would you have like a pool of money and if an agency had most requests don't take a lot of time and don't take a lot of energy so they're just done with but if an agency or department had a and have normal maybe I should say request that did take a lot of energy they would draw from that pool how do you know how have you thought about how you would do that I know what it would look like in an ideal world and that would be every entity has in-house someone who can advise them on the law so that be that legal advice that component so that they could be in compliance they have someone who's dedicated at least a person in some agencies you probably have to have more to receiving and responding to those so there's some consistency and as of course as they as they do that they also gain knowledge and become less reliant on the legal advisor because they become better at it you need the appropriate literally copying equipment that is effective at reacting and I don't know what kind of redacting equipment there is out there so there would be a pool of money necessary I can tell you that and I don't know beyond what you're talking about is worth exploring but I can only tell you what a perfect world looks like and I'm not sure we can get there so you're probably imagining something in between and I at least applaud you for trying to come up with some solution because you know while we have examples of public officials maybe making the wrong call and that happens some of them make that wrong call in good faith some of them make that wrong call in bad faith but I think you're going to take care about ninety nine percent of your issues if they have the resources they need to make the right call and that they can respond to some of these more difficult requests in a timely manner and we've just set the system up that I get the media's need for records of my people need them in a certain period of time all of that's understandable and there's this tension and the question is how do you resolve it it takes resources that's the bottom line isn't every agency maybe Chris can talk to this when he comes up every agency or every department supposed to have a point person for public records and maybe they just assigned the person who wasn't at the staff meeting that morning I don't know how they do that but you know you can be assigned that job and that isn't your only job right right so you know you want a person who's dedicated position responding to public records and maybe you know pool resources and very small entities that know that they can share that person but it it requires I think that level of attention I mean I suppose my experience in state government and my experience outside of state government that's my 50,000 foot view and remind me about the inquest what you know that was I thought that was a part of another bill there's a criminal justice bill that seeks to make public inquest records it's like a grand jury proceeding so so it's a charging it's a charging investigatory proceeding where prosecutors typically they would do any cases where they are not quite sure whether or what to charge a great example in Burlington used it once in an unsolved homicide and they had evidence of well they had an idea of who did it and they thought they had evidence and they wanted to see if the grand jury thought that was enough to charge and in that instance my recollection is the grand jury did but it was still a tough case for them and they resolved it by having him identified where the body was so they could make the family call and then he got a reduced sentence and reduced charge that was the deal they cut because it was a tough case but the point of that grand jury proceeding is you can put that information in in that particular inquest if and that was an ink excuse me let me back up an inquest is an information gathering tool for them to do in secret so you would use the inquest to try to get information from witnesses who otherwise would cooperate with you and the problem is in this particular bill my recollection is that if there's no charging decision after that the inquest records are public and that's the rub for law enforcement because if you have an ongoing unsolved homicide or an unsolved case where you might not actually end up charging through this investigatory secret proceeding then you will potentially jeopardize investigation but that's another committee I think the state's attorneys are responding to but I just that was a truth I don't think it's in I'm on junior year I don't remember seeing there okay so thank you for the record Chris Winters Deputy Secretary of State and I didn't have I don't have any prepared testimony either I pulled up some previous testimony but I won't repeat much of it I think Elizabeth I think she hit the nail on the head when she talked about resources and what we're what are our priorities here and what should we be investing in as a state because I think we all agree that transparency is incredibly important it's rooted in the Constitution is right there in the Public Records Act that our government should be open and accessible and accountable to the people and that's one way that we foster trust in what we're doing and we all know trust is at a dismal level right now in government especially in things going on in DC regardless of party and then looking at state and local government people get very cynical and don't have a lot of faith often in what their government is up to and that's something that we face as state employees every single day you know I'm dealing with records requests and questions about open meeting law all the time dealt with several of them today from people who are frustrated with the things that are happening they believe there's funny business happening behind the scenes because they can't see what's going on because folks aren't following the open meeting law or the Public Records Act and seem to be secretive even even if they don't have any there's no nefarious intent there so we all know it's really important that we be open in everything that we do subject to that balancing of certain privacy interests but it's difficult to do I'm a 20 plus year state employee and before I was a deputy secretary of state I was a staff attorney and I was the director of the office of professional regulation and I didn't pay a lot of attention to transparency but I was subject to all these records requests that were annoying at best and really got in the way of my work at worst but you know what's what's really important it was still part of my job and I still did it and I still follow the Public Records Act and responded in a timely fashion and made sure that it got done even though it was inconvenient being in my position as deputy secretary now I see kind of a bigger picturing or broader view of all the agencies and what they're dealing with and what the public is the point of view of the public as they're coming at us so I think Elizabeth is right in saying that most state agencies are trying to do the right thing but it's not their full-time job and they don't have the resources to do it so that's where I think you know some of what you heard last time you were here which on this issue and I wasn't here unfortunately but you heard from Tonya Marshall about records management how important that is if you're organizing and managing your records as you go it makes it that much easier to respond you're not hunting for versions you're not looking through huge stacks of paper when you've already separated the week from the chaff and the organize things into categories it's a lot easier to respond technology is another piece of this there are programs that make it easier for you to redact for you to blur video for you to do the privacy protections that you have to do to obey the exemptions in the law and then it's the people I'm the records officer for the Secretary of State's office so my spare time I respond to records request I can often delicate that to people but sometimes I can't and so I have to go through those emails and I have to go through those documents and take a look at them and see what needs to be redacted and what we can give out and what we can't so not every agency is fortunate enough to have a dedicated records records manager but as the senator pointed out earlier everyone's supposed to have a designated records officer someone who's the point of contact the agency for records but some agencies do have actually made that investment and do have embedded within records professionals and I think time you can can speak to some of that there is a job series in state government for records managers probably not saying the job title quite right but there is a series of that as an actual job title that's information is so important in today's day and age and accountability and transparency is so important that we need to start dedicating those resources in the right places and part of that is technology and its people to be able to respond to records requests so we really appreciate that this committee has taken the time to look at this it comes up every every couple of years we struggle with many of the same issues it's really hard to thread that needle to make the distinction between the so-called you know weaponized records requests and people who are of pure motive and really just trying to get to the bottom of something and doing an important service actually to the to the state by asking for records and holding agencies accountable so to make that distinction is a nearly impossible task and I appreciate that you've tried to struggle with it here today and but we would ask that you continue to keep inspections free of charge and that when there is a charge for copies that is related just to the actual cost of providing those copies and so we think if you don't do anything at all we think the state of the law is adequate with respect to copies and inspections but if you do do something that we should move to make public records even more open perhaps consider an ombudsman perhaps consider clarifying and consolidating the many exemptions that we have spread out through all the different statutes so again we really appreciate all the time that you spend on this my boss if he was here today would talk about his platform that he's run on for many many years around transparency and the transparency tour that we do every couple years to inform people about their right to know we think it's critically important to a healthy functioning democracy and trust in government so thank you Chris on average how many requests do you get a week and how much time average does it take you to come up with so me personally well the office I don't know if I could even tell you that and it depends on how you define request for information versus requests for public records you know tanya gets a ton of them at the vermont state archive so they actually track it there in the main office you know also say the office of professional regulation they deal with their own records requests over there they get a ton of those in the main office I will do probably a couple a week some of them are really quick quick turn around here where's the document here's the document there you go some of them are big searches across all of the email and the secretary of state's office for um the panel for example this is a total hypothetical there's no but we're getting a lot of requests around elections and local government around this time of year with the elections coming up so I don't know three to five requests a week and it really depends like the big email search can take me half an hour or two an hour or the one document can take me five events okay thank you so I wonder if there's a middle a third category here so you have the I can't remember what your two categories are one was um anyway the the the really big one the investment go to that in that in the um kind of overreach one I wonder if there's something in between that's I'm just thinking and I'm not sure if I can say this right but say I introduce a bill um I don't know I introduce a bill and somebody asks for all the emails around that bill what what is the what is the purpose of that and the transparency of that if I get emails from my constituent saying support don't support somebody has to go through and redact the that person's name because that's a constituent that's responding that's asking me if I email with another legislator I email with Brian and say um what about this part of the bill I mean that's what what is that category because that really is something that seems like a like a fishing expedition yeah or what what is the purpose of it anyway to find out all the emails that I may have received or sent about a particular bill that isn't even being discussed so we start with the premise that all records are public records they belong to the people they don't belong to the agencies that are in custody of them um and then there's a supreme court decision that says identity or motive shouldn't be considered when you're responding so it doesn't really matter what they want it for if it's a public record or who they are doesn't matter you know you might have you know this person you might say is just trying to harass us but this person is a pure motive you really shouldn't look at that that's the difficulty in threading the needle on these but there is a provision in law that allows you to to try to narrow and I often start there is to talk to the person who's making the request and saying I want to I want to provide you what you're looking for doesn't always work depending on who it is I want to provide you what you're looking for and I can get it to you quicker if you can you know tell me specific more specifically what you want to know and we can narrow it hopefully to some search terms or to one specific bill or one specific constituent and the other thing I would say is you can't your redactions need to be based on those exemptions that are in statute so it's probably not based on who sent it to you I guess it could be in some instances but it's more around other protected information that the legislature has said we don't give out you know personal medical information or social security number or something like that or personal information from constituents I think that is not not not I guess I wouldn't say that in a blanket way personal information I mean when somebody writes you can tell me they're they're horrible life story and the problem they're having with an agency that that's one of the other difficulties in responding is that you you might need to take a look at each one of those emails to really read it and that's the most time consuming part reading and redacting depending on the request but that can be very time consuming understand that's a huge burden on agencies and on the state but we think that burden is appropriately placed on the state not we shouldn't put a big paywall in front of that for the public to access those records just because they have to be redacted it is I understand that I just don't don't want anybody would care what I think about there are a lot of people on license flights you know why why anybody has an interest in that and for what possible transparency for anyway that's in the cases of those big email requests there are there is technology available so you can do a kind of behind the scenes search that can help you do it more efficiently you can search for keywords and then the records management piece that I'm not good at but everyone is going to need to get used to doing I think is you know sort of sorting and organizing those as they come in the technology is there to sort them into different folders to say you know everything related to this bill goes there I know I don't do it either but there are ways when you get 150 or 200 of them a day no way yeah so I just thought remembered when the vy thing was going on and they had a suit against the state and they asked for certain legislators to well we were all asked to save all our emails about vy and then they picked certain ones and asked for them Michael Grady who was our our public records guy at the time Claire air was one of them and he went through all her emails and his response to her was you legislators aren't nearly as interesting as you think you are because there really wasn't anything there so anyway okay thank you we keep thinking we come up with solutions Brian three times has come with the perfect solution events already yeah I have to say the testimony we took last week basically from our media colleagues was I thought compelling and the ACLU weighed in and I was ready to go down a certain path with I didn't care we'll follow me who didn't I was going to go but then a few people tapped me on the show and said did you think about this no no and so there's no it appears easy solution here you could come up with a standard fee and there's still examples of when that wouldn't work you can come up with a temporal guide if it takes you more than a half hour an hour a day and there are examples where that just doesn't work so I I don't know what to do we're not that smart I guess no I think it's I think smarter people before or have struggled with this and not been able to come up with the the appropriate balance I think what we have is it's pretty good I think the way that it stands as we get more and more of these requests it is forcing some some innovation and some better records management and adapting technology and getting people on board with understanding this is the new normal and it's sort of a survival mechanism of sorts where necessity is the mother of invention here and I hope we're all getting better and hopefully we'll invest more in good records management, good technology being able to respond to these requests yeah and I I mean it was probably even public records uh law was first passed in 65 no 75 right around the watergate time that's right and um I would my guess is most things were either on a tape which we know what happens to 18 minutes of tapes are 13 or whatever it was and um or on pieces of paper but now I mean what even is a record if I don't use social media so I don't have except for email but I don't I don't think that's even called social media no I just wanted to follow up on Chris's testimony to job series there's a records and information management job series in the state of Vermont it started off with the creation of the Vermont state archives and records administration but we've expanded it to all agencies and departments um in the way it's worded we'll keep amending it and doesn't include public records requests but it includes managing the records as well so in many ways you know Chris and I respond to requests very differently because with the state archives we know what's in our records we're not we're not responding we're not reacting to a situation where someone's giving us request and then deciding to understand what's inside the records we're doing that on retrieval or upon access uh the records and information management specialist um besides those in my staff I actually allocate I have 17 staff members do everything that we do it's not just records and information management we remanus three repositories we do it ministry of rules we do it just like turkey we do all the records for the propell there are about eight or nine people on my staff I actually took one FTE and placed that person inside human services as full-time um and the leaps and bounds that that agency has made with one FTE has been amazing and so we have an agreement with them that as of July this year they're going to find a vacancy which I'm assuming an agency decides that the agency of human services in all those departments should be able to do that but that person's going to transfer there and we have the department of public safety on agreement waiting for that vacancy to happen um total in the state is about nine people the only person the only department actually hired specifically on their own is department of corrections that's fairly new our um our records and information management specialist works directly with him kind of advising him on how to do the public records request but largely managing as well the records schedules um that we are responsible for pushing out laws actually management plan is not just record retention and um disposition um I've been looking at you know what are ways to make it more efficient for public records requesters to know what an agency has or which agency has the record um and how to make that request framed some other states use their record schedules so requesters who make requests knowing kind of which set of records the because those schedules are done if you look at how many agencies have engaged in the scheduling process with this with us since we've been created it's very low so the recommendation to actually use those management plans to their advantage are not there um we allocate resources across the board our room specialists are accommodating many different agencies right now we're you know we're obviously have a lot of agencies that we provide support to but we're always able to get them into the record scheduling um sometimes there's you know delays and fits and starts based on staffing and availability and and so forth but those management tools and why we're kind of created were to facilitate that so it does go hand in hand um it's just that we have huge gaps even make some recommendations to make it easier um but in comparison for maybe the nine represent information management specialists in the entire state how many IT people are within the state how many attorneys how many business managers so there really is a um an issue with in terms of personnel and allocating the resources um but I have seen and if you wanted I would recommend inviting the agency of human services to come in human resources human human services what is the agency oh that's really okay we allocate one of our um yeah sindonal tool chief operations officer and I are the co-leads on that particular steering committee they meet every single month um and we tackle all sorts of information technology issues and how to make sure their records can be managed more effectively they do state um agency white scheduling it has grown in 18 months of that allocation just leaves them out um one FTE my favorite role but happy to do it um but I think that was a really good success story they have gone from one to two and three um on the maturity model for information governance so again it goes hand in hand there are some ways to make sure on the flip side for records uh request how to frame that but those come from having really good record schedules which aren't just retention and disposition it really itemizes at a high level like a pocket the types of records that each agency has based on the function that they do how much um cloud do you have for bagging the agencies and departments uh follow the record schedule oh you're laughing myself question oh yeah okay how much cloud do you have well the record schedules are required by law but happens since they're not following um right okay I don't you don't have any uh the only the carrot that I used to have was a record center if you want to use the state record center if I law you have to have a record schedule so that still happens um I know that you working collaboratively agency of digital services because they're kind of the successor to the paper they're the they're the new record center right they're the ones that manage the systems and um but it is it's about it's to me it's about that one resource being in there and when they see the difference it doesn't make a difference but I don't have much I don't have any teeth to force it um which is unfortunate because I think it would make a huge benefit and you also don't have any teeth to enforce them having a records management person I mean having following the schedule and having the person and right there's some law that requires agencies in the departments that are underneath the governor's cabinet to have an active and continuing records management program and that's among law that requires them to assign them and board their staff as records officer but again as a duty is otherwise assigned to how we best say it and classify um but we just working sometimes with our records and information management specialists drives the need that they recognize that they value that particular position and want it to have it they're not necessarily going to vacate or have the means to vacate and it's very difficult to create a position in state government right now so you really have to make a decision um but they often have the resources sometimes they do it they just don't have the ability to make the position to happen I wonder if we should um have somebody from the administration I don't know what would be the two performance officer or the secretary of administration um somebody come in and talk to us about how we can put more my recommendation if you wanted just some insight would be to um like you said human services has seen that they also corrections um underneath that has higher return on records and information management special that works collaboratively with us and then Department of Public Safety I'm actually they're they're barges are assigned records and information management specialists because they're just kind of short staffed and last year the body cam came up the dash cam all those particular issues on managing them and um so I've been working with them directly on their records management policy that we just see them kind of grow in the last six months so it doesn't make immediately good success necessarily on the public records request but we work collectively with their um public um records officer which is a little different um labor underneath the administration um to help her locate records and and better manage them I just want to clarify the part of the position so you know that there's a there's a whole job series out there okay four line people for the record JDS with the ACLU thank you uh for having me again I just wanted to to comment quickly um a couple things I heard today and then a couple of things that the ACLU has been advocating for for a number of years and just let you know about those includes some of the pieces of Senator Brock's bill just want to remind everyone a really caution everyone around you know this concern about the you know gigantic requests I mean because it in terms of what I've heard about any of these records which I've only heard about one or two they've always been a request for a copy and so they've always been charged the person requesting that always has to pay for that um so I haven't seen that actually happen in the instance of the agency has to expend a lot of resources and not receive anything in return by and large my experience in making requests which I've made a lot and my experience representing requesters is that you know Vermonters are reasonable we work with agencies regularly to try to narrow our requests we're not trying to hurt anyone who are SAP resources or weaponize the public records act it's it's for the people in order to access government information and I think that's how Vermonters see it and then the last thing I mentioned in my testimony a couple weeks ago is that in these instances if they do come up around large requests there's always the option for a public entity of any kind to go and ask a court to enjoin them having to actually put forth the information I was under the absurd results doctrine I think if if following through with the requesters ask would mean that it would harm the agency in some substantial way or prevent them from doing their job in some substantial way I think the court would be very sympathetic so that's an avenue that they can go down bottom line the position of the ACLU is that the current mechanism that we have for accessing public records post-oil and I would argue that it was this way before doil is satisfactory it's not it's not great in terms of transparency but it's not bad it allows Vermonters to access information on an equal playing field and I think that that's what that's that's the balance that that you all have struck and I think it's a satisfactory balance at this point I'm happy to answer questions on that or just move forward quickly there's no continue I have another question sure so just you know in terms of the list of issues we've focused on in the past this committee and the legislature took up some of them a couple years ago thankful for those around this schedule responses and bond indexes you know letting us know what's been redacted and why unfortunately a lot of times still despite the strong language you all put in law those are regularly disregarded I have yet to receive a bond index without asking for it and many others are in the same position so you know it may be necessary to have teeth there or or we may need to have a case about it at some point from some entity but I just want to make you all aware of that there are other issues and I can send you an updated list of issues that we think need to be addressed in the public records act so I'll forward that to you all regarding Senator Brock's bill we in 2014 filed on behalf of prison legal news a lawsuit against cca which is now of course civic the private prison entity that the state contracts with we sued for public records from cca which you know is a private corporation they argued in a motion to dismiss we are not a private public entity so you don't get to ask us for public records and the washington superior court here said no you're doing a governmental function with with state dollars you know I didn't have a four-part test I think he discussed this before and said the public gets to look at at certain records that are that are you know that you create me in the course of your business um so I would say that that by and large that is the state of the law and I think I would guess most entities see it that way um you know I'm a little hesitant to go as far as you know just uh just an entity that's received that that gets a grant from from the state um to do a specific kind of work uh unless it's around this particular financials of that or there's something like that because I don't want to we don't want to inhibit entities from accessing state resources in order to do good work um so I you know I want to uh I'm a little wary of that but uh but in the end um ensuring that entities that are doing these traditional government functions uh in particular those involved in uh in prisons and uh potentially healthcare and others um you know we would be in favor of those being subject to the public records act in my large think they already are so that would include anybody that performs services may get paid for for services provided or I mean I'm thinking of for example the designated agencies they um get a this is some grants and then some fee for services and um so a fee for service is different than a I don't know I I don't know it's been a great question I don't think they're gonna like it but but I think we would you know we think that uh given the traditional function that they're doing and that um and the amount of funding they receive is the amount of funding that of what their business or what their model is um it may be it may be important to think about whether they should be subject to the public records act why did we take this up remind me law enforcement is much easier sure no I know it just um I mean I think given the so my question for you I guess is you said the way things are now seems to be working so we if I asked to inspect a record the prep time of that is not charged to me because I'm just inspecting it if I asked for a copy um even two pages of that once I get it then can I be charged for the prep time on it or just charged for those two copies because we heard from the different agencies do it differently some of them charge for the prep time for the copy but not the prep time for the inspection which doesn't seem at all reasonable and I think that's where the issue came up with the taking of the because that they're not asking for a record they're making their own record and so uh I think the way and I talked about this weeks ago I think is that this is the mechanism we've chosen there are many different ways that states decide to provide free access to public records um and many uh and so and this is the one that Vermont chose to make inspection free of charge and when you're going to ask for a copy it's it you can be charged and I think that goes to as I mentioned you know Vermonters are likely to be the only ones asking to inspect because they're here it's going to be local people you know someone from out of state is not going to ship someone here to do the records request necessarily to do a inspection um at least I mean that's it just seems like that's that would be the consent response from from us so I think that's that's why and I think it it makes sense to some extent there are other mechanisms that you could look into but there are plenty of states that do it this way and have done it for for decades and how about the taking of the picture this is this is obviously a new area so I don't there's not as much uh looking into it I mean I would as as we've said the idea that taking a picture costs the state something I don't think is is uh and allows for someone to charge is appropriate and we don't think it's in the interest of transparency and accountability to do that again these are the locals who are doing the inspecting and taking a picture this is is I I could tell you when I make a rigorous I'm not going to be the one who's going in and taking pictures I want copies of documents I want things I can put into court um that are uh you know easy to see and things like that I think people taking pictures of documents are going to be you know every day Vermonters and I don't even know if it's actually even come up I think there was you know there was a policy that the AG's office put out but I still haven't heard about actual examples or multiple examples of this happening um it doesn't seem to be that this is a major problem that is that that requires an immediate solution in the way that at least in my experience and how what I understand thank you thank you all right well take it up again keep working on it and um Tucker will have all the answers for us next week sure okay