D+ IN INTEGRITY

Katherine George, a Seattle attorney and a member of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, is unsurprised by the state’s dismal grade for public disclosures. Widespread misperception persists, she says, that unreasonable delays in complying with open-records requests are permissible if based on staffing constraints.

“Often, agencies could eliminate backlogs if they devoted as much staffing to records disclosures as they do to public relations,” George says. Obtaining records would be faster and easier if agencies “worried less about over-disclosing, which is protected from liability, and worried more about under-disclosing.”

George is concerned Washington may be backsliding on its commitment to ensuring citizens’ access to government records and data. Washington’s Public Disclosure Act was originally enacted with fewer than a dozen exemptions for disclosures. The number of exemptions today stands at more than 400, and the total is growing.

--Washington gets D+ grade in Integrity

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