So just how open is the State of Minnesota? A review of two sources that compare both transparency and access in government to other states reveal poor results for Minnesota, highlighting the need to refine current laws and policies.
Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project
The Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project, located at the University of Florida, ranked each state in over 100 different statues. The rankings allow citizens and public officials alike an opportunity to better understand how well states faired in public access to local government information. According to the site, each state law is rated by the MBCAP Sunshine Advisory Board (SAB) on a 7-point scale from laws that allow the most access (7) to laws that allow the least access (1).
The Project did rank Minnesota highly in its application of the data practices act to all portions of government and the minimization of fees for people requesting access to inspect a record.
The rankings also reported that Minnesota performs poorly in a number of areas including maintaining separate indices for public records stored on computers, records that are not kept by the agency from which the records are sought, the lack of time frame in responding to public requests, computer purchasing requirements, no statement on records pertaining to public schools, a lack of the application of the open meeting law to party caucuses, the lack of guidance for destroying public records, and finally, the Project gave Minnesota low ratings for not designating any requirement of notification to the press, public or sex offenders about the posting of sex offender registry information on the Internet.
The Project provides rankings in well over 100 different areas, so check out the sight for yourself and see where Minnesota ranks in many of these other areas.
Investigators and Reporters
Investigative Reporters and Editors ranked individual states on their ability to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Based on rankings (including response time, appeals, expediency, fees & costs, and penalties), Minnesota received a D and was 40th out of 50 states. Although the scores were generally low across the board, Minnesota had especially low ratings in response time, appeals, and penalties.
While Minnesota has strong areas of transparency in government (for example, access to their legislature is typically pretty high), these rankings show that there is room for improvement. Hopefully reports like this gain the attention of policy makers.