The General Assembly’s Joint Committee Studying the Public Records Act wrapped up its two-year study in November with a spiffy revision to a statute that had not been seriously updated since it was first passed 30 years ago.
Many of the amendments added over the years had grown obsolete; others create internal and external inconsistencies; and there was very little flexibility built in to accommodate shifting technological sands.
Joint subcommittee chair Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, appointed a sub-subcommittee to study the State Documents Depository Program. Based on a proposal recommended by workgroups and the sub-subcommittee, draft legislation of the State Publications Depository Act was adopted “in concept” by the full subcommittee for introduction in the 2006 General Assembly.
Cox created another sub-subcommittee to tackle the precise revisions to the PRA itself. Then-Del. Ryan McDougle, R-Mechanicsville, chaired the sub-subcommittee. Joint committee members Conley Edwards of the Library of Virginia, and Rosanna Bencoach of the State Board of Elections, were also appointed.
Lisa Wallmeyer, executive director of the Joint Commission on Technology and Science, assisted by JCOTS staff attorney Patrick Cushing, led another round of informal workgroups of various stakeholders.
Working off of a draft proposed by the Library of Virginia, the workgroup came up with changes to the whole act, most all of which were adopted by the full joint subcommittee.
Highlights include:
• A requirement that newly elected or appointed officers be given a copy of the PRA for review, just as officers are required to do with FOIA;
• Clarification that the physical format of a record (e.g., paper vs. electronic) does not change how a record is valued;
• New definitions for conversion, electronic record, essential public record, lifecycle, metadata and migration;
• A requirement that government entities not just name a records officer, but also tell the LVA who that person is and how to contact him or her; and
• The LVA was granted discretionary authority to audit entities that do not comply with PRA. Results must be summarized in a report to the governor and chairs of the general laws and finance committees for both houses of the General Assembly.
Though the proposal as a whole was adopted by the joint subcommittee, McDougle was bothered by a section that changes the number of years a confidential record could be kept confidential from 100 years to 75 years.
McDougle worried that, since we’re all living longer now, some adoption records would be made available while parties to the adoption were still alive. The new period is more in keeping with the way things are done in other states and the Library of Congress, which told staff counsel that none of its confidentiality periods were longer than 75 years.
The draft, as well as the draft of the State Publications Depository Act, will be presented during the 2006 legislative session.