The University of Oregon has accepted a number of policies in recent months that help progress relations between the University and the public, including one new policy waiving the first $200 in public records request fees for most anyone seeking information. The public records waiver also assures that documents, which cost 50 cents per page, will now be free for most people.
The policy changes come after pressure from both the Senate Transparency Committee and from President Lariviere’s compliance with state laws concerning public records availability. The committee met last Tuesday, Sept. 20, to confirm the new changes.
“The new policy will create stronger bonds of trust between the University, the media, and the community,” said committee member Kim Sheehan@@http://www.uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/kim*sheehan@@.
The Senate Transparency Committee is comprised of three University faculty members who were appointed to preside over the issue of public records transparency@@http://committees.uoregon.edu/node/363@@. Members include committee chair and economics professor William Harbaugh@@http://www.uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/William*Harbaugh@@, journalism professor Kim Sheehan, and English professor Gordon Sayre@@http://www.uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/Gordon*Sayre@@. Public records officer Elizabeth Denecke@@http://www.uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/Liz*Denecke@@, who serves as an ex-officio, non-voting committee member, is in charge of all requests coming into the public records office.
“We’re a public university, and the public has a right to know what we’re doing, and we’re slowly moving to a situation where they can find that out,” Harbaugh said.
During the first nine months that the public records office was in operation, its efficiency of responding to records requests was sub-par for both the committee and the staff of the President’s office. In order to achieve a higher level of productivity, Senior Assistant to the President David Hubin@@http://www.uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/Hubin/770@@ was appointed as supervisor of the public records office.
The Senate Transparency Committee, along with the help of Hubin, pushed for procedural changes to prevent delays and stalling in the process for public records requests. Among these improvements is a $200 waiver, a new online reading room with ready-to-view public documents and an online log of all public records requests. The online reading room and request log were both launched over the summer, while the fee waiver policy was decided upon earlier this month.
“The day that a request is made, it is logged online so that the public can see just how long it is taking our office to back to their request,” Hubin said.
The new policy changes were discussed and finalized at Tuesday’s committee meeting. The $200 waiver has been imposed for all public — but not private business — requests. Requests involving business interests will still be charged the same fee for processing and document copies. The committee chose to leave in place the fee for business-related requests because they hold no direct value to the public.
“If it’s hard to get information, people think you’re hiding something, which isn’t the case,” Sheehan said. “People will be able to get info quicker and more easily than in the past, which shows our dedication to transparency.”
The time it takes to get a response from a public records request has decreased dramatically in the past two months, showing the University’s dedication to the new policies and improvements. The average time of a completed request for the month of July was 13 days, but the average time of a completed request for the month of September was merely four days.
“I really believe the changes we’ve made are going to enhance our relations with the media,” Hubin said. “As a public university, we want to make the public’s records readily available to them.”
For more information on public records, visit: http://publicrecords.uoregon.edu/requests