How can New Mexico be more transparent?
The New Mexico Independent ran an article in April that compiled several takes on New Mexico’s transparency. It asked: “How can New Mexico be more transparent?” and asked for several takes on an answer. Basically, there’s room for improvement.
One obvious answer, however, to how the state can be more transparent is an overhaul of its open records and open meetings acts.
Bill Turner, a hydrologist and former director of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, noted that disclosing data isn’t the full scope of transparency. He details what are essentially problems with the execution of the state’s open records and open meetings act, the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. He details several problems he and others have had in trying to receive information from New Mexico offices and how these offices, either because of ignorance or purposeful information blocking, have refused to disclose information. “Our state legislators don’t even want webcasts of legislative sessions and committee sessions.”
The execution of the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act leaves room for improvement, but so does the law itself. For example, the cap on what a government can charge for a page of a record is $1. Perhaps for people who haven’t FOIA’d records, that sounds reasonable. But consider the fact that in order to have complete records for multiple years, FOIA responses can be hundreds, and thousands, of pages. And there’s the fact that the actual cost of making a copy is closer to 10¢.
A stronger law, with “teeth,” could help remedy the issues Turner has experienced. Illinois was facing similar problems with compliance with its Freedom of Information Act and the situation forced the legislature and Attorney General to come up with a stronger law governments would be compelled to follow. The new law was drafted to include what is in practice a cap on the amount governments can charge for information: if it isn’t “reasonable,” then that counts as noncompliance. Fees for noncompliant governments are up to $5000 . Being someone with experience in sending requests to local governments in Illinois, I can confidently say that these stipulations in the open records law really do work to motivate governments to provide as much information as possible in the most timely manner. The law in effect makes it so that when deciding whether to disclose information, the government must lean towards disclosure.
As Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation notes in that same article, the current law allows for many, many loopholes for local governments and agencies to forgo disclosing information.
This is being abused. For instance, state agencies cite federal FOIA law exemptions to create exemptions to the New Mexico obligation to produce records. They are two distinct governments. The exemptions and coverage of FOIA are separate from IPRA. The same reasoning would allow a state agency to cite tribal law, or the municipal law of Tupelo, Mississippi, or the internal code of Zimbabwe as they search for some law, somewhere–anywhere–that might give them an out.
And, he notes, it does not cost $1 to make a copy.
For more on New Mexico’s transparency, take a look at some of the wealth of information we have on Sunshine Review:
*New Mexico state government salary
*Evaluation of New Mexico counties website transparency
*Evaluation of New Mexico school district website transparency
*Evaluation of New Mexico state website transparency
*New Mexico government corruption
*New Mexico transparency legislation
