Odendahl. Marilyn. 2023. OPINIONATED DELAY: Staffing change in public access counselor’s office creates backlog of open record decisions. The Indiana Citizen, July 10, 2023.

In recent years, the Indiana public access counselor had kept a steady pace of posting advisory opinions to its website, reaching as many as 92 in 2021, but by the end of June, the website offered just six decisions for all of 2023.

Luke Britt, the Hoosier state’s PAC (at right), blamed the slowdown on a change in personnel. The small government agency, he said, had been without a program coordinator since April and no one had been available to go through the process of virtually publishing the decisions issued in response to complaints about public access or open records.

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Zachary Baiel, president of the Indiana Coalition for Open Government, said timely release of the advisory opinions is critical since they can inform how best to frame an open records request. The published opinions are a “trove of insight” that details the situation that spurred the complaint and includes references to other PAC decisions and court rulings so readers can go further into the issue if they want.

You can read the full article here: https://indianacitizen.org/opinionated-delay-staffing-change-in-public-access-counselors-office-creates-backlog-of-open-record-decisions/