In response to an audit that criticized City Hall for having a sloppy process for giving public funds to charitable organizations, city officials say they’re going to stop calling the payments grants and instead treat them as donations with fewer strings attached. At a meeting of the city’s Audit Committee Tuesday, Interim Chief Administrative Officer Sabrina Joy-Hogg came equipped with a legal opinion from the city attorney’s office declaring that — in the eyes of the law — the payments should be considered “gifts or donations” from the city. After hearing Joy-Hogg’s response, City Auditor Riad Ali said it was “important to note” that the city should keep tabs on the money no matter how it’s labeled. “Whether you call them grants or contracts, you have to monitor it,” he said. “That’s not going to take away our recommendation. We’re giving away a certain amount of money… Monitoring is still necessary for us to ensure that the money is being used accurately and appropriately.”

A bill that extends CORA response deadlines cleared another legislative hurdle Monday while a wide-ranging Republican-sponsored government transparency measure died on a party-line vote in a House committee. Senate Bill 25-077, which passed the Senate in late February, gives records custodians five working days, rather than three, to fulfill Colorado Open Records Act requests made by the public and an additional 10 working days, rather than seven, if “extenuating circumstances” exist. Journalists are exempt from the lengthened timelines, but governments can take up to 30 working days to fulfill requests made “for the direct solicitation of business for pecuniary gain” and charge a “reasonable cost” — rather than the maximum hourly rate in CORA — to do so.

An Arkansas Senate committee approved two bills hours apart Tuesday seeking to define a public meeting, an issue that has plagued local elected officials and government transparency advocates for decades. Sen. Clarke Tucker, a Little Rock Democrat and sponsor of Senate Bill 227, told the State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee Tuesday morning his proposal would, “after 50 years, bring clarity to the law” by setting parameters for what members of city councils, quorum courts or school boards can discuss outside of a public meeting. The bill also would amend the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to add cybersecurity breach as a reason to meet in executive session, introduce and regulate remote meeting attendance, and allow a court to nullify official actions taken as a result of violations of open meetings law. Tucker maintained that under his bill, any number of members of a governing body could meet to chat, so long as they were not “deliberating” or discussing items they would take action on in the foreseeable future.

A union for U.S. Agency for International Development contractors asked a federal judge Tuesday to intervene in any destruction of classified documents after an email ordered staffers to help burn and shred agency records. Judge Carl Nichols set a Wednesday morning deadline for the plaintiffs and the government to brief him on the issue. A person familiar with the email who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal verified that it was sent to at least some essential personnel. The email was sent under the name of Erica Carr — the acting executive secretary at USAID — and bears a USAID logo. “Thank you for your assistance in clearing our classified safes and personnel documents” at USAID headquarters in Washington, it begins. It directed staffers to report to work starting Tuesday. “Shred as many documents first,” then stuff remaining classified material into designated bags for burning if the demand on the shredder becomes too great, the email instructed. Staffers were told to write “secret” on the bag with a marker.