A bill advanced by state senators would give county clerks up to 20 working days to comply with Colorado Open Records Act requests during election seasons, except for requests made by journalists.
A bill narrowly passed by a Colorado House committee Tuesday night includes a provision that prohibits law enforcement agencies from charging fees for unedited body-worn camera footage released to the public under the 2020 Law Enforcement Integrity Act.
A bill in the Colorado legislature aimed at curbing the “abuse of CORA” no longer contains a provision for labeling certain requesters of public records as “vexatious.”
A reworked Colorado Open Records Act bill endorsed by a House committee shifts the legal burden of proving that a requester of records is “vexatious” to a government entity’s records custodian.
Records custodians would have the power to deem someone a “vexatious requester” and bar that person from obtaining public records for 30 working days under a bill introduced in the Colorado House that also lets government entities take longer to fill most requests made under the Colorado Open Records Act.
Several key rulings in 2023 showed why courts matter so much for enforcing and interpreting Colorado’s open government laws.
Lawmakers did not, however, tackle the No. 1 barrier to obtaining public records in Colorado — exorbitant fees. And that problem will only get worse on July 1, 2024, when inflation boosts the maximum-allowable hourly rate to process CORA requests from $33.58 to a whopping $40 or $41.
A year from now, on July 1, 2024, inflation will likely boost the maximum hourly rate governments are allowed to charge for processing Colorado Open Records Act requests from $33.58 to around $41.34 — an alarming 23 percent increase.
Gov. Jared Polis’ signature on Senate Bill 23-286 will change the Colorado Open Records Act in some small but important ways when the measure takes effect in early August. Here are some things to know about what the CORA bill does — and does not do.
Despite a looming inflationary increase in fees, state lawmakers in the 2023 legislative session never addressed the often-high cost of obtaining public records in Colorado but did vote to eliminate some nagging obstacles for users of the Colorado Open Records Act.
