Michigan is facing a looming problem that is already affecting our schools and all levels of state government. This problem is our state’s unfunded accrued liability (UAL), also known as “legacy costs.” These costs are the differenc ...

Well, no surprise here. Now that the General Assembly has needlessly weakened the state's Freedom of Information Act, a variety of interest groups want to carve out exemptions to the law for themselves. In a word, no. Bad idea. The public ought to be able to copy public records and attend public meetings and know what public officials are doing. Residents of Connecticut have given lawmakers no reason to weaken the FOI. The solons shouldn't have done it last year, and they shouldn't do it again. read more ...

Conceal Food Stamp Data A federal court has ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture cannot keep secret the amount retailers receive for participating in the food stamp program (SNAP). The case began when the Argus Leader, a South Dakota new ...

Proposals to change the Freedom of Information Act are on the legislative table again this year in addition to the recommendations of the recently-concluded task force on privacy and public disclosure. The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, ...

The Obama administration is refusing to divulge how much it spent to build the secret prison facility at Guantánamo where the accused 9/11 co-conspirators are held and has asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit by a Miami Herald reporter d ...

The city of Belleville (IL) will use a new procedure and web system to handle requests for public records following tension between the mayor and city clerk. Since the municipal election in April, Mayor Mark Eckert and City Clerk Dallas Cook have b ...

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection officials never reviewed two key pollution-prevention plans for the Freedom Industries tank farm before the Jan. 9 chemical leak that contaminated drinking water for 300,000 residents, according to interviews and documents obtained under the state's public-records law. Under a DEP-approved water pollution permit for the site, Freedom Industries was required to prepare a storm-water pollution prevention plan and a groundwater protection plan. read more ...

From The Denver Post: CENTENNIAL — Defense attorneys in the Aurora movie theater murder case plan to take their effort to subpoena a Fox News reporter all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Last year, New York's highest court ruled that a state law there protects journalists from having to reveal their sources and quashed a subpoena for reporter Jana Winter, who is based in New York. Defense attorneys want to find out who leaked information to Winter about a notebook that gunman James Holmes mailed to his psychiatrist. At the end of a hearing in the murder case ...

From North Forty News (northern Colorado): As the state legislature, school districts and law enforcement agencies discuss how to make Colorado schools safer, the North Forty News found that parents have been left out in the cold because there’s no way to independently verify — either online or via formal records requests — whether the school their child attends is safe. A three-month investigation involving more than 30 Colorado Open Records Act requests, hundreds of highway miles to file hard copy records requests and a dozen other e-mail or phone requests to state and local agencies found that Fort Collins ...

From the Reporter-Herald (Loveland):  When Interior Secretary Sally Jewell visited northwestern Colorado earlier this month, it provided her and other officials the opportunity to view a sage grouse recovery program that has been described as being an innovative way to bolster the numbers of the native birds. In the process, however, it seems she and her staff found an innovative way to break open meetings laws, too. As part of the visit, she had asked to meet with the members of the Moffat County Board of County Commissioners to get their input on the program. However, she wanted to get ...