Archives for February 2008

From the Spokesman-Review

Official documents would be stored online

Betsy Z. Russell
Staff writer
February 24, 2008

BOISE – Despite a 1972 law that requires them all to be saved, official Idaho state publications have been vanishing left and right.

The reason: Idaho’s state repository system is so out of date that few agencies comply with its requirement to send 20 copies of every publication to the state librarian for placement in a series of libraries around the state.

These days, that requirement is expensive, unwieldy and not suited for publications that in many cases only exist in cyberspace, officials say. So state lawmakers are considering legislation to set up a new “digital repository” for state publications, which would collect all state publications and make them easily available on the Internet.

“We have been aware for quite some time that the current system is not effective,” said State Librarian Ann Joslin.

An example cropped up in 2006 when then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne headed to Washington, D.C., to become the new secretary of the Interior, and Lt. Gov. Jim Risch took over as governor. Overnight, Kempthorne’s Web site and everything on it vanished, replaced by Risch’s.

“The Kempthorne Web site was gone. You couldn’t access it,” Joslin said.

Some agencies archive publications on their Web sites. Many simply overwrite one publication such as a newsletter or manual when a new one comes out.

Joslin said it’s not uncommon for her office to get calls from agencies looking for something they published 20 years prior, hoping someone, somewhere, has a copy. Often, no one does.

Under the digital repository system, one electronic copy of every state publication would go to the state Commission for Libraries, which would preserve it in the new digital repository. If the publication is available in print, agencies would send two print copies – one to the Idaho Historical Society and the other to archives at the University of Idaho.

“It’s much more efficient for them to store the documents digitally,” said state Sen. Kate Kelly, D-Boise, who spoke in favor of the bill in the Senate. “And it also provides for much better public access.”

There’s a financial reason for a digital repository, too: Agencies are producing more and more publications, and printing, storing and shipping copies of those – and making them available to the public years later – would cost far more than putting them all online.

“There’s a small amount of capital investment in the technology that’s required to kind of make this conversion, but there’s a huge cost savings in duplication fees and storage fees,” Kelly said. “And then, of course, the greater public access – you can’t put a price on it, but that’s going to be one of the great benefits of this. A lot more information will be available.”

State publications contain information aimed at the general public, as opposed to regulatory documents or forms.

The old repository has everything from past state highway maps to an Idaho Arthritis Resource Guide from 2003. There are statistical reports on arrest rates by police agencies, reports from state fish hatcheries dating back decades, and a series of publications about sensitive plant species.

The repository would cost $202,000 next year to set up, then $132,000 a year to operate and maintain.

State Historical Society Director Janet Gallimore said, “Those collections will be far more complete for current and future users.”

After the digital repository is up and running, Joslin said, old print publications will eventually be digitized and added.

From the Spokesman-Review

From the Associated Press

By SIMON SHIFRIN
Associated Press Writer

BOISE, Idaho (AP) _ The Idaho attorney general says members of the state Board of Education may have violated the state open meeting law when they briefly discussed the possible cancellation of a test behind closed doors during a December meeting in Pocatello.

But Attorney General Lawrence Wasden says penalizing board members with a $150 fine is not an option because of the burden of proving they “knowingly” violated the law.

Wasden released the findings of his investigation Friday along with a recommendation that board members get training to better understand Idaho’s open meeting statute.

“There is a need for training and greater understanding,” Wasden told a news conference. “We need to have an understanding on how this law operates. This is a really critical matter.”

Board spokesman Mark Browning said his agency accepts the investigation’s findings and has already scheduled training for next Wednesday with staff from the attorney general’s office.

“His assertion in the report that the board may have unknowingly done something wrong, we accept those findings,” he said. “There’s always room for improvement. We welcome opportunities to undergo training and improve ourselves.”

In December, the Spokesman-Review newspaper of Spokane, Wash., filed a complaint with the attorney general alleging that the board illegally excluded the public from a Dec. 6 executive session where it discussed eliminating the ninth-grade Idaho Standards Achievement Test. Other newspapers later joined the complaint.

The Idaho Open Meeting Law requires 24-hour meeting and agenda notice be given before holding an executive session. The notice must list specific reasons for the closed meeting.

The law allows executive sessions to cover such things as hiring new employees, disciplinary action, labor negotiations and plotting legal strategy, among other things.

Knowingly violating the law carries a maximum $150 fine per person for a first offense.

The attorney general’s investigation found that the board did discuss for three to four minutes the possibility of cutting the ninth-grade statewide test. Wasden said board members believed it to be a proper discussion in the context of talks about financial constraints on hiring.

Wasden’s investigation found that the board did not deliberate or make a decision on the test during the closed meeting, but board members perceived a sense of “inevitability” that it would have to be cut.

On Dec. 10, the board’s interim executive director, Mike Rush, and Browning decided to notify school districts that the ninth-grade test would be canceled. They issued a statement that said the “board” had eliminated the test.

Wasden called the statement “inaccurate” since the board did not actually approve the cancellation of the test until a public meeting on Dec. 20.

Wasden said it’s clear the board did not make a final decision about the testing during the Dec. 6 meeting, which prevents him from levying fines against board members.

He also noted that an Idaho Supreme Court decision last year established that the use of the word “knowingly” in the statute means that officials have to be aware of the law to break it.

“Knowing really has an element of what’s in somebody’s head,” Wasden said. “That’s a fairly high standard to meet.”

Carla Savalli, a senior editor at the Spokesman-Review, told The Associated Press on Friday that she was pleased that the attorney general took the newspaper’s complaint so seriously. She said, though, that she was concerned about the issue Wasden raised about “knowing” the law.

“We feel that the law here needs to be clarified,” she said. “Ignorance is being used as an excuse for violating the law. I don’t think there’s an excuse for public officials not knowing the basic tenets of the open meetings law.”

From the Associated Press