PA House Intergovernmental Affairs and Operations — 2026-03-23

via designation.

Totino if you will please read a summary of the resolutions. Thank You Mr. Chair House Resolution 375 sponsored by Representative Cooper

Thank you, Mr. Excuse me. Thank you. Amendment A0-2602, sponsored by Chair Stats, changes the date of House Resolution 379, the year from 2025 to 2026. Thank you.

Representative Cooper, would you like to testify on your resolution? Yes, I would. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman DeLosso and Chairman Stats. Good morning, colleagues. I appreciate your consideration of House Resolution 375, which recognizes October 18th as Willie Thrower Day in Pennsylvania. As many of you know, there are many firsts in Pennsylvania. Our great state was home to the first hospital, zoo, and even our U.S. Capitol. But a lesser-known first is an important event that occurred on October 18th in 1953. A young man named Willie Thrower, who was born in New Kensington on March 22nd, 1930, his 96th birthday would have been yesterday, by the way, took the field while playing for the Chicago Bears. He became the first African-American quarterback to take a snap in the modern National Football League. Thrower's achievement earned little recognition at the time, but the fact remains he blazed a trail. I look at this, he said years later, I was like the Jackie Robinson of football. a black quarterback was unheard of before I hit the pros. It should be noted that he went to Michigan State University and helped the Spartans win a national championship in 1952 as well. Willie Thrower was elected to the Westmoreland County Sports Hall of Fame in 1979. He was inducted to the AK Valley Hall of Fame in 1981. In 2011, he was inducted to the Whippeal Hall of Fame. In 2006, a statue of Willie Thrower was erected near Valley High School in New Kensington to honor his accomplishments. In 2003, the Willie Thrower historical marker was erected on the road that runs past the high school he attended in New Kensington. In 2021, the Willie Thrower Award Foundation debuted an award for the top quarterback in the Whippeal and City League. October 18th, 2023 was designated Willie Thrower Community Day in New Kensington as part of a four-day celebration of the 70th anniversary of Throer Plays for the Chicago Bears To honor this achievement annually the Willie Thrower Award Foundation offers an annual award to the top quarterback in the Whippeal and City League. I will be attending that event this coming Saturday. While many in the LA Kiske Valley are familiar with these important milestones in both sports and civil rights, it is lesser known in other areas, which is why I'm happy to ask for positive support for House Resolution 375. By supporting this resolution, we not only help correct a historical oversight and give Willie Thrower the recognition he deserves, we also honor a local hero who holds a very special place in the hearts of his community. Thank you for this time, and I can answer any questions if you'd like.

The vote? Aye. Brown? Aye. Carol? Aye. Aye.

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Thank you, Chairman DeLuzzo. And no, I just want to welcome everyone. Thank you for being here this morning, and we look forward to your testimony on right-to-know law. Thank you.

whenever you're ready. All right, good morning. Thank you Chairman DeLosso and Chairman Statz for all that's going on taking time to talk about Pennsylvania's right to no law, understanding the dedication to transparency as well as the impact of those efforts on the Commonwealth and local governments. I talk to good government advocates across the country a lot, and Pennsylvania's right to no law is the envy of a lot of other states for two main reasons. One that a lot of requests can be made at no cost, and that is a really quick turnaround. If you are interested in government records, you fill out a simple form, give it to the local or state agency you want, and they have to turn on pretty quickly, either five business days or take plus a 30-day extension and at no cost to the requester unless there may be some photocopying fees which are becoming less frequent. And then if for some reason they're denied the request, they can again fill out a simple form for free, appeal to our office. They don't need an attorney. They can sit back and not do anything because the burden is on the agency to defend their decision to deny the request. So you have a really quick turnaround. You don't need to be an attorney. And most of them, it does not cost a thing. And very few states offer that. Most have some type of fee or it can take a long time. There can be years of a backlog. And we've seen numerous challenges over the years. I became executive director. My appointment began in 2021. And whenever a big issue popped up, we'd have a surge. The COVID pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, We saw a real surge in requests and then appeals. And the current challenge of facing the right to know law dwarfs those challenges. And it's because of this explosion in the use of AI, using generative AI in requests and appeals. And the concern is that it could overwhelm the system for agencies, for my office, the Office of Open Records, and the courts. And just to give us a sense of the numbers, if you compare the last six months to six months a year ago, We seen a 64 increase in appeals And we looked and there no big issue that popped up that led to this It is the use of AI which we seeing all over place in the appeals And my amazing 24 colleagues have sacrificed holidays and vacations and weekends and evenings with their families because we have that tight 30-day deadline to submit the decision. And I took it upon myself to kind of see how it works. I pretended I was denied a request, and I put it into, I think I used chat GPT. And I said, I was denied this request, and they said it was because it was internal pre-decisional deliberation. What do I do? I'm really upset. They said, good news. Did you know that you can for free file with the Office of Open Records? And they will, want me to tell you how to do it? Sure. Here's how to do it. You want me to give you some really good legal arguments that will help your case? And they say, absolutely. and it keeps asking you questions to try to get you to use its services, just like it does if you want to make it your doctor or your car mechanic or your travel agent. It thrives on continually asking you questions to give you more information. So we see requesters taking that legal argument and copying it and pasting it into the appeal form. Previously, requesters would just put a few sentences, maybe a few paragraphs, more if they're an attorney or a frequent requestor, because their burden, they don't have to defend or make their own case. And so now we're getting what previously was a few paragraphs or a few sentences, page after page, of legal arguments. And the increase in the numbers of requests in appeals is intrinsically not a bad thing. It's good people know more about how to manage the right-to-know process. but it's also not without major consequences to other agencies and the OOR. A more complex problem is that AI bots are not yet good attorneys, and they're serving as attorneys as legal representation in these matters. We see all sorts of problems. They will cite legal cases that never, ever existed. They never occurred. Or they will have real legal cases and pull quotes from that legal case that don't exist. Another one is it'll be a real case and a real quote that sounds like a slam dunk, like this is the perfect defense of why I should get these records. But when you read the case with a nuanced eye and a legal understanding, it actually has nothing to do with the issue at hand. These are just computers, bots grabbing different things here and there and throwing it together and in 10 seconds spotting a legal argument. And so now, so it's just not yet an attorney. It doesn't have the nuance or understanding of the law to do that. So now our office, the Office of Open Records, is dealing with a 64% increase in the number of appeals, needing to review several pages of submissions that are riddled with problems, and a higher quantity, volume of submissions to look at. And AI is not going anywhere. It's going to become more and more ubiquitous in everything we do. You can't even type anything into Google without using AI. And it may continue to increase exponentially. That 64% increase that I mentioned could be a rate that it continues to increase for years. And so we've sat back and thought, what is the solution? The governor and you and your colleagues have been very generous in recent years in giving us increases to increase the number of staff that we have, which may continue, but it's more of a Band-Aid than a long-term solution to continue to increase our complement over the years. We think the most important step at this point is to explore a legal or legislative approach that centers on a process to identify and disallow the improper use or unverified use of AI It seems like it would be quite challenging to prohibit the use, given that AI is going to be built into everything we do, if not already. How would you enforce that? But something that says, all right, you can use AI, but if you throw what they call slop at us, there may be consequences for that unverified review of your work. And so that is kind of, that is the biggest issue that we're seeking in our office at this point. And in my seven years as, excuse me, five years as executive director, I have not been as concerned about the future of the right to know law as I am now with the impact of AI. Other states, as I mentioned, they charge fees for records. They have a much longer time period for records. They don't have as requester-friendly of an appeal process that we have. They charge fees, allow commercial requesters to charge fees. Some don't allow out-of-state requesters. And my fear is that if AI overwhelms the system as it could, that these are changes that many people will start recommending as a sort of a survival mechanism going forward. So that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Chairman DeLoso, and thank you, Director Wagenseller, for joining us here this morning. As you stated, today's technology-driven world, much information is maintained electronically. It may seem easy to maintain and prepare electronic records, but preparation of these documents for a right-to-know request can be just as time-consuming for an agency as a paper copy. In order to deal with the costs associated with providing electronic records, particularly on the municipal level, what are your thoughts about allowing agencies to impose a fee for preparation of these types of documents?

Follow-up? Absolutely. Do you think the fees of this type kind, the per megabyte fee, might also help with your concerns relating to the misuse of AI?

Thank you, Representative Menzer. Representative Rassel. Rassel, I'm sorry.

We haven't seen a big change in the types of requests or the appeal of those requests specifically. It's just much more detailed in what – it's a request that we can see was clearly made using I. It's much more detailed and thorough versus I'd like the next two months. It'll say give much more lingo in what they want. But in terms of types of records being requested, we haven't seen a significant shift. Okay.

I mean, it would certainly decrease the number of requests if you weren't able to submit it. Because what I'm thinking is that it takes nothing away from

inmate appeals that are submitted by post-a-mail and handwritten. And there are a lot of challenges with that in terms of because of the quite quick turnaround times, that if the mail makes it much more complicated, you know. There are a lot of challenges with AI, but technology does create a lot of shortcuts on things. So it would increase a lot for our office in terms of having to handle hard copies of appeals and submit them and put them in our system. So we've developed things that save a lot of time because they are automated, so that would throw a wrench in things in terms of that, yeah.

Oh, yeah, it certainly would decrease them, yeah.

Are there any other questions from the committee? Representative Olsomer.

Yeah, so we see the appeals. We have 30 calendar days to turn it around. And agencies have shorter, at least for that initial response, to have five business days. And typically, because things can become before us, I don't opine on specific proposals. But hearing if the agencies, I know that there's other concerns of how much more time are we talking about. Like, you know, I know it can be years in some places, which I don't think that's what you would propose. But I know that a lot feel like they would feel relief, particularly those who have just a few hours a week, a few days a week that they're open for business. So that's something you'd have to talk to agencies about to feel, is understanding of how that would impact them. Because we deal with appeals, and for us, the timeline is tight, but it's the quantity. That part of the equation is what we struggle with. And so perhaps their struggle is more with time than the quantity.

Are there any other questions from the committee? I have a couple. First of all, I want the committee to recognize that we've been joined by Representative Fleming. I have a couple. I have one real quick question and a statement. Maybe I should make my statement early on that the incursion of AI and the word search that it does, keyword search, is affecting all government and, frankly, all representational bodies.

To clarify, they are not using AI as far as in it. They use postal mail. They submit it by regular postal mail on pieces of paper. They ask for all sorts of things, things related to their cases, things related to what's going on in their correctional facility. It used to be a much higher percentage of our appeal case, but it's really gotten dwarfed by other things in recent years. But, yeah, they are, I think, about 15% of our appeals.

Thank you for your testimony today, Director Wagenzeller, and we can move on to our next panel. Thank you. Moving on to our next panel, which will be, which will represent the local government perspective Panel number two is Ray D D Lancaster County Commissioner County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania

Good morning.

The chair recognizes Mr. Gretzka.

answer any questions committee members may have. Thank you. Thank you gentlemen for your testimony. Are there any questions from the committee? Representative Menser. Thank you Chair DeLosso

We support that. Obviously, it needs to be reasonable. There are ways of doing that. We can work collaboratively on that. There's some ideas about maybe charging on a per megabyte or some other kind of access cost, but we do support that.

Thank you, sir. Representative Arousal.

Anything over the five days. Anything over the five days. A little more breathing room.

Thank you. Representative Chairman Stotts, do you have any questions?

uh for example i mean i i can i can understand where uh especially at the county and the municipal level when we're when we're offering out work uh that commercial enterprise has a right to know but are the rtk request you're getting for example i mean do you get a request i i need i would like to request everyone who's pulled a permit to do kitchen repairs. I mean, I will answer from the perspective as once a township manager, but also as a county commissioner, and the answer is yes. I remember specifically as a township manager getting such requests and having to have a lot of those records weren't digitized at the time, and having to have staff go into a room and pull out boxes and go through all the documents to pull them out. And at the county level we get requests like that, not necessarily permits, but for large-scale volume of data that are used for the same purposes is what I think your question gets to. And I want to add that while that document may exist, the software we have does not not redact the information. So we have to print that out and then go through, and it could be a large document, and then go through and redact personal information. So it's not just as simple as getting a document and then handing it over. It does take some time, as I've mentioned in my testimony. So yes, we do see those things. So this is a situation where we wrote a law in 2008. We haven't readdressed it. You know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? We want to be transparent in as much as we can be. But I, you know, I got to say I'd be a little bit resentful of a commercial interest that is requesting permits, you know, people that have pulled permits, whether you're a realtor or a home improvement or whatever, you know, you're mining at the public's expense. Now, I know from the labor, National Labor Relations Board perspective, attorneys send runners in every afternoon to read the journal entries to see who's petitioning for elections and everything else. And then, you know, they're commercially mining, but of course they're physically doing it. They're not doing it through RTK. I can see where that would be burdensome, and I can see where maybe, you know, there is no maybe. I mean, obviously, we need to look at the 2008 law and get to work on improving the situation without, here again, restricting the press or restricting the general public from a well-regulated measure of transparency. Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, and thank you so much for having us. I apologize for Terry's absence, and I know I'm a poor substitute, but we'll do our best. And you have her written testimony, and so I won't repeat all of that in detail. and just so you know who I am I have I'm a member of the transparency practice at Obermayer and we represent corporations media organizations governmental entities and many others in all aspects of government transparency right to know FOIA sunshine everything in my past life I was in the same position as Melissa and some of the other folks here the advocates here with the Pennsylvania and News Media Association, and then I was Terry's first chief counsel at the Office of Open Records. It's like Liz Wagon's stellar works. So I'm delighted to be here today. The purpose of our testimony is just to thank you for your attention to this, to encourage you to keep going, that this is a law that changed so many things for the better. We went from second to worst in the country to, you know, almost near the top. and that was a brave move on the part of the Pennsylvania government we appreciate that but it is time for a tune as someone said because we slipped You know the ranking of our law and of how it administered has slipped to 25th so right in the middle, and I think we can do better. And there are some things that really have proved to be challenging. The one thing, it's not, I don't think, our most important point, but I think it's long overdue, is that, and many of the other testifiers spoke about it, is the length of time that agencies and the Office of Open Records have to respond. And we really believe that it's time to give the Office of Open Records the discretion to extend the time period. They have the wisdom and the wherewithal to make those determinations, and the caseload that they have is extreme. I mean, I worked there. We never had that many cases, and I don't know how they do it, higher than the assistant district attorneys in the city of Philadelphia. So it would be, I think, wise to give them the discretion to be able to extend. And I think that the quality is great now, but it would improve. It would give them more time to really get to the bottom of what's going on. These cases are so fact-intensive in most cases. The thing we have the strongest feelings is the bulk of Terry's testimony is the due process failures for third parties. This is where we're seeing a lot of mischief and misunderstandings and extreme unfairness to companies who submit in good faith their proprietary information for whatever reason and all the courses of government, but get no notice when that information is requested under the right-to-know law. So as it currently stands, the right-to-know law does not require notice except in one instance. And the courts have, to their great credit, cobbled together rules. And we all try to follow those, but it is increasingly difficult. And we have a client right now, Merikey, the Substance Abuse Treatment Program. It's national, and they're throughout Pennsylvania. But, you know, they invest millions into their treatment processes, their plans, their methods. And they have a situation now where their information was requested, and they had no idea. And so all of that information, this is their lifeblood, is just going out the door without any recourse and any ability to make the argument. Now, you can get back in, and the courts and the Office of Open Records have been very welcoming and fair to companies who get late notice and allow them to come in. But it is imperative that we address that. And that is not necessarily a complicated fix. The courts have done a good job, And I think that the legislation could be even clearer and provide a lot of clarity to the situation. We also, this is not as significant, but we are one of only, I think, three states that do not have a time limit on the exemption for criminal records. and so there are, you know, after a case is closed and justice has been done and everything's over, there's a reasonable amount of time and we think that you have the wisdom to figure out what that is, but to close records in perpetuity can actually make things worse And so we would ask we represent a lot of media companies and a lot of other types of organizations and we think that the permanent closure really undermines the right to know the law's public accountability purpose. And then lastly, the state-related universities. You know, we have Pennsylvania as an outlier compared to other states where public universities are fully subject to transparency laws. And we recommend that we expand the right-to-know law to state-relateds as well as state-affiliateds to ensure full accountability for taxpayer funding. And that is the gist of our testimony, but we thank you and encourage you to keep going. And I also offer Terry and myself as resources for you. If you should need any other research or testimony, we'd be delighted to help. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Melissa Moluski. I'm in-house counsel with the Pennsylvania News Media Association and we represent print and digital news organizations across the Commonwealth, and we have done so for almost 100 years. One of the hats that I wear at PNA is to administer its PNA legal hotline, where I respond to roughly 2,000 inquiries from journalists across the state every year. and that number has remained consistent in my 20 years in this position. They offer a clear view of how the right-to-know law is functioning in practice. So I'm giving a different perspective than what you've heard this morning. I'm giving you the public's perspective, the press's perspective of how the law is working in practice. The right-to-know law, as we can all agree, was a significant improvement over the prior law. It has strengthened transparency and accountability, but experience reveals gaps that now undermine its core purpose. And I'll focus on several of the most pressing from the press's perspective today. And my written testimony is much more comprehensive. I'm going to give you bullet points this morning. I'm happy to expand on anything you have questions on. First, we are seeing a steady expansion of statutory carve-outs. We're seeing more and more legislation that exempts entire subjects from the right-to-know law. We believe that approach is both unnecessary and counterproductive. The right-to-know law contains carefully constructed exemptions that protect sensitive information while still allowing disclosure through redaction. It's a careful balancing that we have in the right-to-know law. But when there's a statutory carve-out, that balance disappears. When the entire subject is removed from the law, like I said, that balance disappears, and information that could have been released in redacted or aggregated form becomes entirely inaccessible. And over time, these piecemeal carve-outs erode the right-to-know law itself. We risk death by a thousand cuts, and that's obviously not something we want to see happen here in Pennsylvania. Second, from the press's perspective, we are seeing significant delays and unnecessary administrative processes. The most common problem I hear about is not denial, it's delay. And those delays are driven by two separate practices. First, agencies are increasingly requiring formal written right-to-know law requests for records that are plainly public. Meeting minutes, contracts, salaries, budgets. The law does not require a formal request for routine public records, and it shouldn't be used as a mechanism to create both more work for our friends at the agencies and cause delays for members of the press and the general public who need access to records in a timely manner. Requiring a formal request in these circumstances creates unnecessary administrative burdens and wastes both agency and requester resources Second agencies are routinely invoking the Right to Know Law 30 extension often as a matter of course rather than necessity The statute requires an agency to respond as promptly as possible under the circumstances and within five business days with the opportunity for additional time when circumstances demand. And that extension is intended for limited special circumstances. But in practice, it has become standard operating procedure, and there is no mechanism in the law for which to challenge. These two practices operating together create predictable delay. For example, reporters often request materials ahead of public meetings, only to be told they must file a formal request, wait five business days, they get a 30-day extension. And all of this is happening well after the meeting has already occurred, when access is no longer truly meaningful. And this conduct isn't limited to journalists. It's impacting the general public as well. I mean, our hotline hears from journalists primarily. Out of those 2,000 calls, 99% of them are journalists. But I hear a significant number of this kind of example from members of the general public who really have nowhere else to turn. There is no PNA legal hotline for people. So I do hear that. That is a common practice. We believe that encouraging proactive disclosure, similar to the federal FOIA's reading room concept, would reinforce prompt production outside the context of the formal right-to-know law process, and it would reduce unnecessary delay, conserve public resources, and better align with the statute's intent for prompt public access. Third, and as Corinna has already mentioned, the criminal and non-criminal investigation exemptions here in Pennsylvania are some of the broadest in the nation, and we believe they create a significant barrier to access here in Pennsylvania. As written and interpreted, Pennsylvania's criminal investigation exemption shields most law enforcement records, even long after cases are closed and resolved. This includes even basic incident reports, which were public under the prior, more restrictive law. And they simply reflect what would be observed if you were standing at the scene watching the police perform their job in your community. At the same time, the requirement to provide arrest police blotters, which is embedded in the law, has become increasingly hollow. Many agencies maintain that they do not maintain a police blotter, and even if they do, not all incidents where police are involved result in arrests. And a blotter is simply a chronological listing of arrests made contemporaneous with the event. The result is that the public often has no meaningful access to basic information about criminal activity in their community. And we believe that wasn't the intent of the right-to-know law, and it's something that could be meaningfully addressed by the legislature. The non-criminal investigation exemption functions in a similar way, with no ability to access records even long after an investigation has been closed. It has been used to withhold records like inspection reports for child care facilities, nursing home inspections, infrastructure safety records like those related to gas explosions and bridge collapses. These are records that directly affect public health and safety, but the right to no law makes them inaccessible. At a minimum, we believe the law should ensure public access to the results of non-criminal investigation exemptions that impact health and safety and to law non-criminal investigations after the investigation has been closed. There needs to be some triggering event under Pennsylvania law, and that's what we see in other states and in the federal realm. Once something has happened and that something is typically the closing of an investigation, there is some amount of access. We just don't have that here in Pennsylvania. It's a forever and ever amen. When something is investigatory, it's always exempt and will ever be provided under Pennsylvania law. Fourth, record formats. And we've heard a lot today about electronic records and AI. From the press and the public's perspective, court interpretations of the right-to-know law allow agencies to increasingly convert data from usable structured formats like spreadsheets and databases into static PDF before producing them. That strips away searchability, sortability, formulas, and the ability to analyze and verify the information. And what was once a functional data set, in effect, becomes a static printout. That's not a neutral administrative choice. It materially alters the record and diminishes its value to the public who's relying on it for transparency. This practice creates a clear imbalance between the public and the agencies. Agencies maintain and rely on these records in a dynamic format precisely because they enable efficient analysis, oversight, and decision-making. Yet the public is often provided with a degraded version that resists the very scrutiny the law is intended to facilitate. And this impact is not abstract. It directly affects the public's ability to evaluate government performance. Whether the issue is tracking spending, identifying trends in public safety, or assessing regulatory enforcement, meaningful oversight depends on the ability to sort, filter, and analyze data. A static document frustrates that process and can obscure patterns that would otherwise be readily apparent. The risk is only increasing as government agencies rely more heavily on databases and data-driven systems to manage their operations. And transparency in this context is not just about whether information is disclosed. It's about whether it's disclosed in a form that allows the public to use it, to test it, and to draw informed conclusions. When access is limited to static outputs, the result is a diminished form of transparency that favors form over function. For that reason, we believe legislative clarification is warranted, and at a minimum, we believe the law should make clear that when an agency maintains information in a dynamic or native format, it must be provided in that format unless the requester agrees otherwise. Fifth, the pre-decisional deliberative exemption. I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but in practice, this exemption has become a catch-all justification for denial of records that are essential for the public to understand not just what the government decides, but how and why those decisions are being considered in the first place. And we see this most often with regard to records that are discussed, presented for discussion and deliberation and action at a public meeting. Journalists report that this exemption is especially problematic with those kinds of documents. and it's typically because timing matters. Transparency after a decision has been made is not as meaningful because you can't use the information to have an informed and meaningful public participation in the decision that's being made. We believe the statute should clarify. There's language in there now that says records presented to a quorum for deliberation at a public meeting are public records. Despite what we thought was clear language, in practice that's just not what happens. We believe that the statute should clarify that materials presented for discussion and deliberation and action at a public meeting must be available at or before the meeting and without the need for a formal request. In addition, the exemption should be more narrowly defined to reflect case law that has found that it does not extend to purely factual materials, records that are shared outside the agency with third parties, and information that's used to inform public facing deliberations. Six, the emergency time response logs We believe the right to know law should be amended to define the minimum content requirements for these records These are one of the few law enforcement records we get under Pennsylvania law But because the statute doesn't define what is in an emergency time response log, practices vary quite widely across the state. And the inconsistency has caused real consequences for public understanding. Without access, the public cannot identify patterns that may signal emerging risks. If, for example, there are multiple suspected overdoses on the same block in a short period of time, that's not just an isolated set of incidents. It's a pattern that may warrant additional public health attention or emergency resources. But under current law, we may never be able to see that information that would allow us to recognize the pattern, because what is in a time response log is undefined and varies quite widely. The same is true for emergency response performance. Without location data, you know, where was the ambulance sent, where was the police dispatched, where did fire go, without the incident type, the location data, and the response times, residents can't evaluate whether services are being delivered equitably across communities, whether certain incidents have better or worse response times, and whether certain neighborhoods are experiencing delays or recurring safety issues. These logs also provide broader insight into public safety concerns. Repeated responses to the same intersection, for example, for serious vehicle accidents, may point to problems with road design, traffic controls, or lighting that indicate the need for a change. There's also a more immediate concern, and I think it's one that we've heard about today, and that's misinformation. When an emergency incident occurs, reports of shot fired, suspected burglaries, or other serious events, information gaps are quickly filled with speculation, providing basic factual details about when and where a response occurred and the general nature of the incident helps keep the public informed by facts and not rumors for all these reasons we recommend the statute be clarified and at a minimum we believe emergency response logs should include the date and time of the call dispatch arrival and release the location of the response the nature of the incident and the responding agency. Seventh, the so-called vexatious requester. The line between a vexatious requester and a persistent watchdog is often in the eye of the agency being scrutinized, and for that reason and others, this is an area that we believe warrants significant caution. First, the available data does not indicate that this is a widespread problem. The data indicates that most right-to-know law requests are routine and manageable. In addition, local government Representatives have acknowledged that journalists are not responsible for the types of requests that tend to raise these concerns. Second, the risk of misuse is very real. Creating a mechanism that allows an agency to label a requester as vexatious introduces a tool that can be used to avoid scrutiny. A requester who persistently seeks information could be characterized as vexatious simply because the requests are inconvenient or uncomfortable. That's not a theoretical concern. It is a probable outcome. Third, there are practical implications for the system as a whole. An administrative process that allows agencies to seek relief from so-called vexatious requesters will increase the volume of work at the Office of Open Records under the plans that we have seen circulated already in the legislature. With thousands of agencies across the Commonwealth, even a modest uptick could significantly strain that office's already limited resources. And the result would be more disputes about requester conduct and fewer resources devoted to resolving public records disputes, which is the core function of the Office of Open Records. Finally there are serious constitutional considerations that have to be part of the conversation The act of filing a public records request is protected by the First Amendment A system that allows government officials to limit an individual ability to request information about its government raises significant constitutional concerns and could invite federal litigation. For all these reasons, we urge the committee to approach this issue with caution. And if legislation addressing it is considered, we believe the news media must be statutorily exempted to protect their constitutionally recognized role in gathering and disseminating information from and about the government. Finally, enforcement. The right-to-know law lacks a meaningful fee-shifting mechanism. While the statute permits attorney's fees in limited circumstances, in practice, it simply doesn't happen. And over the 18 years that the right-to-know law has been in effect, we can count a handful of cases out of the tens of thousands that have been decided where there have been penalties imposed. and in practical terms that means there's little consequence for agencies that improperly deny access to public records. The burden instead falls on the public. To enforce their rights, a citizen must pursue an appeal against taxpayer-funded counsel and even when the requester ultimately prevails, there's almost no chance of them being made whole. That dynamic has a predictable effect. The cost of litigation is significant and far beyond what most individuals can justify to obtain information about their government. Faced with those costs, requesters abandon valid claims and improper denials go unchallenged. That's not just an individual burden, it's a systemic problem. A transparency law is only as effective as its enforcement mechanisms, and when the cost of enforcing the law falls entirely on the public, the presumption of openness falls away. Meaningful fee shifting would help restore the balance intended by the law. If a requester is forced to litigate and ultimately prevails, we believe the law should provide for recovery of reasonable attorney's fees or a substantial portion thereof if there is a split verdict. That approach does not encourage frivolous litigation. It encourages compliance. Agencies are far more likely to carefully evaluate requests and apply the law correctly when there are real consequences for getting it wrong. At the same time, we believe courts can and should retain discretion to adjust fee awards in cases involving partial success or bad faith by a requester. That ensures the provision governing fees would remain balanced. As it stands, there's little downside to denying access and forcing a legal challenge, and that undermines the statute's core purpose. Citizens should not have to absorb significant financial risk simply to obtain information that the law entitles them to receive. Strengthening the right to no law's fee-shifting provisions would make the right of access not just theoretical but enforceable. And in closing, we believe the right to no law remains a strong framework for transparency, but it is at risk of being weakened by the issues we've discussed today. These are fixable problems and addressing them can help restore the balance we believe the law was intended to achieve. Thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer questions today or as the committee continues its work on this important issue.

Thank you, Chairman, and thank you both for your testimony today. My question is kind of threefold, I guess. I represent Philadelphia, and I come from a criminal background, so I'm not familiar with the specific statutes and regulations within Right to Know. Attorney Wilson, you mentioned giving the right to both parties for extensions, because right now the extension is only on the requester, correct? We were saying the extension would be given, the deference would be given to the Office of Open Records. Oh okay gotcha Because my question there is in regards to you know in the criminal world under Rule 600 you know the Commonwealth has X amount of days to bring a criminal defendant to trial Is there a rule a specific rule within right law requests in regards to timeline Yes.

so I heard our friends in the local government testify about small agencies, right, in the five business day timelines. So the way the right-to-know law is structured, if an agency is a part-time agency, it's only open two business days a week. That five business days is its two business days per week. So it's actually three calendar weeks for a small agency that only has two business days. So it's not – the timing is structured differently depending on whether or not the agency is a full-time agency or not. And with regard to voluminous requests, there's case law that says an agency, when you're dealing with a voluminous request, can file a petition to the Office of Open Records to get additional time. That doesn't happen very often, and Liz would be a much better resource on how often that actually is granted or denied. But that concept does exist as a result of case law in Pennsylvania. So for dealing with a request for millions of records, for example, that's the case that resulted in this kind of holding. That case involved millions of records with ABSCUFF, one of the state agencies involving, I think it's unions. They wanted millions of records. And the agency just, there was no practical way to do that. So that now the courts have created this mechanism by which they can take those facts to the Office of Open Records. And the Office of Open Records could say, yes, you get more time or no, you don't. It is rarely used, but it does exist. Thank you both for that education.

No questions.

State-related to being Temple, Pitt, Lincoln, Penn State. Correct. University of Pennsylvania. Not subject to right to now? Limited. Penn isn't subject, right? Penn's private. But Penn State is limited, just mostly financial records and salaries, and it's pretty specific. There was an expansion last session, I believe, where they originally, as the law was written in 2008, you got basically their 990 form and the salaries of their trustees and then their top 2,500 paid employees. And then after that, there was a long period where there was really nothing from Penn State and the other state-related. And then last session, there was legislation that increased that. So it's lots of budgetary information, salary information, but nothing. It's very different than the way a PASHE school, a Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education school, would be covered. So they are treated very differently. They have a special carve-out.

Thank you. Thank you.