Fees

Tips

¶ OVERVIEW
In a remote corner of northeastern Montana, the Daniels County sheriff said he didn't care what the law said: He wasn't about to let anyone see his list of recent crime calls without a court order. The school superintendent in Ennis insisted his salary is information reserved only for his local citizens and not strangers from out of town. Those were among the responses from government officials that greeted a statewide effort to test the freedom-of-information guarantees found in Montana's constitution and laws. The project, a coordinated effort of news organizations conducted this summer throughout Montana, found that most local government officials followed the law and provided public information when asked. And many did it willingly, politely and even cheerfully. But not everyone.
¶ Open Records-Overview
¶ By Bob Anez. Associated Press.

¶ JAIL ROSTERS:
¶ Nearly half of Montana's county sheriffs violated the state's open records law by refusing to release their jail rosters, a survey by Montana news organizations shows. In most cases where access to the rosters was denied, sheriffs or their employees claimed _ contrary to the law _ that the inmate lists were confidential.
¶ Open Records-Jail Rosters
¶ By Kim Skornogoski. Great Falls Tribune.

¶ INCIDENT REPORTS & PRIVACY:
¶ In some Montana counties, if you want to see a listing of what the sheriff's department was up to over the last 24 hours, the sheriff says you better be armed with a court order. When citizens fanned out to all of Montana's 56 counties to test public access to sheriff's incident reports, the offices sometimes responded with belligerence, suspicion and refusal. In 41 percent of Montana's counties, requests for the public records were denied.
¶ Open Records-Incident Reports
¶ By Lorna Thackeray. The Billings Gazette.
¶ With:
¶ When the right to privacy clashes with the public's right to know, some Montana sheriffs have decided that privacy wins. Privacy is how some sheriffs justified withholding public information in a recent statewide survey of open-records practices.
¶ Public Records-Privacy
¶ By Lorna Thackeray. The Billings Gazette.

¶ TAXES:
¶ When a member of the public asked Blaine County deputy treasurer Mary Swenson how much the commission chairman paid in property taxes, she thought the request was a little unusual. "At first I wasn't going to answer him because I thought, `I wonder why they want that,'" Swenson recalled. "And then I thought, `Well, it's public information, so I guess it doesn't matter.'" Swenson provided the records promptly and without requiring any additional information from the person who asked. "Because they're public information," she said later in explaining her decision. "Anybody from off the street can come in and look at these tax books and see who's paid and who's not paid."
¶ Open Records-Taxes
¶By Jerome Tharaud. Havre Daily News.

¶ SALARIES:
¶ Montana's school districts receive mostly high marks when it comes to releasing public documents, but not everyone agrees on what is public or who gets to see them. Citizens conducting a statewide check of public access to public records this summer visited the largest school district in each of the state's 56 counties, asking for the salaries of the superintendents of the largest school district. In 52 counties, they got the information.
¶ Open Records-Salaries
¶By Barbara LaBoe. The Montana Standard.

¶ COURTS:
¶ Anne Melton learned a valuable lesson about access to public information. When a citizen asked the Liberty County clerk of court to look at the list of pending court cases, she provided the civil docket, but refused to let him see the criminal cases. "I'm not going to show them to you," she told the man. "That's just the way it is." Melton later learned from other court clerks that she made the wrong call. "So it's been a good lesson," said Melton, the clerk in Chester for the past two years. Melton was one of 56 court officials surveyed as part of a statewide check of citizen access to public records conducted this summer by Montana news organizations.
¶ Open Records-Courts
¶ By Ron Tschida. Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

¶ MINUTES:
¶ Most city officials in Montana willingly provide citizens with minutes of their city council or city commission meetings _ if those minutes have at least been typed into "draft" form. Citizens participating in a statewide check of access to public records this summer requested copies of the minutes of the city council or city commission's most recent meeting in Montana's 56 county seats. The citizens got minutes from one of the last two meetings in 52 of the counties.
¶ Open Records-Minutes
¶ By Melody Martinson. Choteau Acantha.

¶ FEES:
¶ Government documents available to Montanans as public information are not necessarily free to the public, and agencies charge a wide range of fees for getting the records, a recent statewide survey found. A project this summer by news organizations to check the ability of citizens to obtain public records sent surveyors into 56 counties seeking city council minutes, property tax records, court files, and information from schools and sheriff's offices.
¶ Open Records-Fees
¶By Chery Sabol. The Daily Inter Lake.

¶ METHODS:
¶ At least on paper, the Montana Constitution and state laws put a premium on openness in government, guaranteeing citizens access to public records, meetings and information. But how does the state's promise of an accessible government play out in practice? That was the question that a coalition of state news organizations set out to answer this summer with Montana's first statewide check of the public's ability to see public +records+.
¶ Open Records-Methods
¶ By Mike McInally. Missoulian.

¶ TRAINING:
¶ Most professional organizations representing government officials make a concerted effort to educate their members about what information is public and what is private, and the effort appears to pay off, a statewide survey to measure citizens' access to public records shows. Groups such as those representing court clerks, school boards and county treasurers that tutor their members on public records rules were more likely to provide the information to the public, the survey found. On the other hand, law enforcement, which gets little such training, was the least likely to turn over public records.
¶ Open Records-Training
¶ By Carolynn Bright. Independent Record.

¶ TIPS:
¶ Who says Montanans have the right to see observe government at work? The Montana Constitution does, and that's all you need to be armed with when you're requesting public information from government officials. You don't have to give your name. You don't have to say why you want it. You don't have to say where you live or for whom you work. (Details...)
¶ Open Records-Tips
¶ By Ian Marquand. Society of Professional Journalists.

¶ EDITORIAL:
It’s no surprise to journalists that information is sometimes hard to obtain from government officials, even if it is public records. (Details...)
By the Miles City Star.

^Open Records-Overview<
^Review shows frequent violations of open records laws<
^By BOB ANEZ=
^Associated Press Writer=
¶ In a remote corner of northeastern Montana, the Daniels County sheriff said he didn't care what the law said: He wasn't about to let anyone see his list of recent crime calls without a court order.
¶ The school superintendent in Ennis insisted his salary is information reserved only for his local citizens and not strangers from out of town.
¶ A District Court clerk in Chinook took it upon herself to censor the roster of court cases by removing ones "the public doesn't need to know about."
¶ Those were among the responses from government officials that greeted a statewide effort to test the freedom-of-information guarantees found in Montana's constitution and laws.
¶ The project, a coordinated effort of news organizations conducted this summer throughout Montana, found that most local government officials followed the law and provided public information when asked. And many did it willingly, politely and even cheerfully.
¶ But not everyone.
¶ Sheriffs or their staffs were the most reluctant to share information that the law says is public. In more than four of every 10 cases, volunteers seeking the latest incident reports and jail rosters were refused. They were met in such instances with responses routinely described as rude, hostile, defensive and antagonistic.
¶ The law enforcement personnel often demanded the names of those asking for the information and why they wanted it. Some even insisted _ incorrectly _ that the answers to those questions were required before the public information could be released.
¶ On the other hand, officials responsible for property tax records, school district salaries, court files and city council minutes complied with the law and made information available more than 90 percent of the time.
¶ Jim Fall, executive director for the Montana Newspaper Association, said the statewide survey serves a valuable purpose.
¶ "I think it was worthwhile because, even though Montana residents have a significant amount of freedom of information guaranteed in the constitution, those rights don't exist in practice," he said. "The public needs to be made aware of that."
¶ Bill Wilke, managing editor of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and chairman of the Montana Associated Press Editors and Publishers Association, said the project had three goals: to hold government officials accountable, educate them on their legal obligations and show citizens how well their local governments follow the law.
¶ "I hope that there is some enlightenment to come out of it and that law enforcement officers realize their open-government obligations are not designed just make their jobs miserable," Wilke said. "They are designed to ensure accountability and to make sure there are not abuses."
¶ The project enlisted volunteers, many from the staffs of Montana's daily and weekly newspapers and TV and radio stations, to visit government offices in all 56 counties and ask for public records. The bulk of the visits were made June 5, with the last of the surveys completed in early September.
¶ The surveyors sought the list of calls to which sheriff's deputies responded over the previous 24 hours and the roster of county jail inmates. They asked for the salary for the superintendent of the largest school district in each county and the property taxes paid by the county commission chairman. They requested the latest city council minutes and copies of District Court files.
¶ In all, the auditors tried to obtain 336 public records. They got the information 273 times, an 81 percent success rate.
¶ All of the information was supplied in just 19 of 56 counties, while five of the six records were available in 18 counties. Four of six records were provided in 12 counties, and just half the information could be collected in six counties.
¶ Wibaux County, where just two requested records could be obtained, fared the worst. But that was because its court clerk and school administration offices were closed when a surveyor visited. Closed offices blocked requests in five instances total.
¶ Just three counties _ Gallatin, Lincoln and Teton _ provided all the information upon first request.
¶ Sheriff's offices were the least willing to follow the law. They accounted for eight of 10 denials statewide.
¶ In 23 of 56 counties, those offices withheld the latest incident reports. Twenty-five sheriff's offices would not provide a jail roster. In one county, Petroleum, none of the information was available because the sheriff was out of town and the deputy sheriff was haying.
¶ By comparison, requests for other public documents were fulfilled 93 percent of the time.
¶ Attorney General Mike McGrath said he's not surprised that sheriffs or their staffs were the most unwilling to turn over public records.
¶ "Law enforcement are trained not to do things that might jeopardize a prosecution, so they are often reluctant to provide information," he said. "Their training is to be careful so the right to a fair trial is not jeopardized."
¶ McGrath said results from the freedom-of-information project can be used to train law enforcement officials on how to handle citizen requests for public records. He suggested sheriffs, police chiefs and their staffs receive written guidelines on proper responses to such requests.
¶ "I really think we can address it with training," he said.
¶ Fall said the frequency with which sheriff's offices illegally withheld information was unexpected.
¶ "That group of law enforcement, you'd hope we'd be able to look to them to protect our rights, our public information," he said. "And we find out they're the ones who abuse it as much or more than anybody."
¶ Even when the information was provided, obtaining it was sometimes not easy. Of the 273 instances in which public records were turned over, surveyors had to make multiple requests in about three of 10 cases.
¶ They often had to run a gauntlet of questions. The most frequent reaction of government officials was to request, and sometimes demand, the name of the person seeking information. That was done 123 times, or 37 percent of the instances. Often, the officials considered the person's identity mandatory before records could be released, even though state law does not require citizens to give their names to get public records.
¶ The city and county officials were a curious lot. Eighty-one times they asked why the information was being requested and 43 times they wanted to know the surveyor's employer. The law does not require citizens to provide that information, either.
¶ The project found a measure of uncertainty among government record keepers over the public's right to see public information. In 69 encounters, officials turned to a supervisor for advice, and legal help _ usually from the county attorney's office _ was requested 11 times.
¶ Twenty-three times, government officials wrongly said the information requested was not public.

^Open Records-Jail Rosters<
^Nearly half of all sheriffs refused to release records<
^By KIM SKORNOGOSKI=
^Great Falls Tribune=
¶ Nearly half of Montana's county sheriffs violated the state's open records law by refusing to release their jail rosters, a survey by Montana news organizations shows. In most cases where access to the rosters was denied, sheriffs or their employees claimed _ contrary to the law _ that the inmate lists were confidential.
¶ In Ravalli County, a detention officer withheld the roster saying it contained all the information a person would need to help stage a jail break. In Madison County, a deputy turned down another citizen's request for the roster, saying she wasn't the first to try to get it.
¶ A sheriff's clerk in Park County released the roster without question, only to have the sheriff say later that she had made a mistake.
¶ "That's confidential criminal justice information," said Sheriff Clark Carpenter. "We're not going to release that information unless directed to by the court. Anything like that may compromise our investigations. I talked to the county attorney. When she found out it was released she wasn't overly happy about it."
¶ But Carpenter's position doesn't comply with the law, which states that the list of who is in jail is a public record.
¶ A review conducted this summer by Montana news organizations to test access to public records found that 25 sheriff's offices, or 45 percent, did not release lists of their inmates kept in their own or another county's jail. That included Liberty County, where the sheriff's office said it had lost its roster, and four other offices that said they did not keep such lists.
¶ Gallatin and Lincoln counties provided the easiest access. In Gallatin County, Sheriff Jim Cashell said the office has printed a daily jail roster for a decade as a tool for the local courts. A copy is kept in the lobby of the sheriff's office available to the media and public. Lincoln County released the prisoner list on the first request without asking questions of the citizen seeking the information, such as the person's name, or without summoning a supervisor.
¶ Eleven other counties also provided the roster on the first request. Thirteen counties provided the information only after multiple requests. Five counties said they had no inmates to put on a list.
¶ In some counties, sheriffs interviewed after the survey said they would have typically released the records, but did not on the day the survey was conducted for various reasons. Valley County Sheriff Glen Meier said normally only the sheriff or undersheriff will release the jail's roster. Meier, however, said people seeking the information would have to give their names, where they work and why they want the information.
¶ Forty-six sheriff's offices demanded to know the name of the person seeking the information, and 29 wanted to know why the reason for the request. State law does not require citizens to provide such information.
¶ "I know a lot of people at sheriff's offices are afraid of getting sued," Meier said. "I think a lot of people fear giving out something they shouldn't."
¶ In Missoula County, Sheriff Mike McMeekin said jail employees should have referred the citizen to the county sheriff's office downtown, a couple of miles from the jail. In Cascade County, Sheriff John Strandell said the jail roster is also normally available, but only three people can access and print the information from the computer system. None of those people was in the office the day of the survey.
¶ The Glacier County undersheriff called a deputy county attorney. The surveyor said the unidentified prosecutor did not want to give out the information, but said it was available at the local newspaper.
¶ "We're going to cover our tails big time. This is strange," the attorney said, according to the citizen surveyor, adding: "We're just a Podunk department" trying to protect the right to privacy.

^By The Associated Press=
¶ County-by-county results from a statewide survey of government compliance with Montana's open records laws, showing what information was provided and withheld:

^Open Records-Incident Reports<
^Four of every 10 sheriffs deny access to reports<
^By LORNA THACKERAY=
^The Billings Gazette=
¶ In some Montana counties, if you want to see a listing of what the sheriff's department was up to over the last 24 hours, the sheriff says you better be armed with a court order.
¶ When citizens fanned out to all of Montana's 56 counties to test public access to sheriff's incident reports, the offices sometimes responded with belligerence, suspicion and refusal. In 41 percent of Montana's counties, requests for the public records were denied.
¶ In 22 counties, sheriff's offices refused to provide the information. In some counties, officials said the records were not public. In other counties, officials agreed that the records were public, but still would not provide them to citizens. And in six counties _ Cascade, Daniels, Glacier, Powder River, Ravalli and Roosevelt _ officials said it would take a court order to pry the information out of their hands.
¶ When told that Montana state law required that the reports be public, Daniels County Sheriff Jim Kramer responded: "I don't care. I'm not giving out that information without a court order."
¶ By contrast, in Gallatin County, citizens don't even need to ask for the records: An area is set aside for the public to review them.
¶ And in Lincoln County, the reports were immediately _ and cordially _ provided. Laura Schrader, record clerk at the Lincoln County sheriff's office in Libby, printed out an initial offense log and provided access to individual incident reports the first time she was asked.
¶ "Knowing what is public information is part of the job," Schrader said. "Sometimes it can be hard to know what can be released without question. It took some time to learn what you can release."
¶ Schrader has been working for the Lincoln County sheriff for 13 years.
¶ The requests for the reports were part of a statewide check of citizen access to public records conducted this summer by Montana news organizations. One of the documents requested in the survey was a copy of each sheriff's report of the incident calls handled in the previous 24-hour period.
¶ "Since 9-11, we just don't release that information," said Kramer, the Daniels County sheriff. He said he would release the information only under a judge's order.
¶ In Ravalli County, an official said that ordinary citizens must get a subpoena to view the sheriff's incident reports.
¶ Sheriff John Grainger in Roosevelt County said the incident reports were not public information and that county officials had verified that with the state.
¶ Other sheriff's offices said that they knew the records were public information, but it was office policy not to release them.
¶ In all, just 11 counties provided the reports at the first request from the citizens making the checks.
¶ Officials in many counties often were uncertain as to whether the reports should be released: In 38 counties, the person who handled the request consulted either with a supervisor in the sheriff's office or the county attorney's office. And officials in 14 counties needed to be asked more than twice before they provided the information.
¶ Most of the surveyors making the checks were from news organizations across the state, but they were instructed not to identify themselves or say where they worked unless pressed by officials. The goal was to gauge how accessible public documents are to members of the public, not just reporters. The law doesn't require citizens to identify themselves to get access to public information.
¶ In 44 counties, sheriff's departments asked the citizens to identify themselves. In 10 cases, the department asked for some form of identification. Some sheriff's offices told surveyors that, although the information requested was not available to the public, the office did share it with newspapers in their communities. Some citizens were told to check with those newspapers for the records.
¶ In some cases, the departments did a little sleuthing into the identities of the surveyors. One of the surveyors, a reporter for the Great Falls Tribune, gave his name when he visited the Liberty County sheriff's office in Chester. The part-time dispatcher said he needed to clear the request with the sheriff, who was out at the time, and the reporter said he would come back.
¶ The reporter _ Pulitzer Prize-winner Eric Newhouse _ returned an hour later. The dispatcher, who had run Newhouse's name through an Internet search, showed Newhouse the results of the search and told him his reporter credentials earned him access to the public information.
¶ "If I had known who you were before," the dispatcher told the reporter, "I'd have given this to you right away. But I had to do my research first."

^Open Records-Privacy<
^Sheriffs say they side with privacy on some records<
^By LORNA THACKERAY=
^The Billings Gazette=
¶ When the right to privacy clashes with the public's right to know, some Montana sheriffs have decided that privacy wins.
¶ Privacy is how some sheriffs justified withholding public information in a recent statewide survey of open-records practices.
¶ At the Judith Basin County Courthouse in Stanford, Sheriff Robert Jacobi staunchly defends the privacy of his incident reports and jail logs.
¶ "That's all confidential," he said when interviewed about his refusal to give jail logs and incident reports to a citizen surveyor who asked for them.
¶ "We really don't want to give out information on every unfortunate thing that happens to people in a community this small."
¶ Confidentiality has been the policy of the sheriff's office as long as he can remember, and if incident reports and jail rosters are public +records+, "That's news to me," he said.
¶ Jacobi says his office has a responsibility not to disclose the misfortunes of people in the community to anyone who walks in off the street. He said he feels comfortable with the policy, and doesn't want to change it.
¶ State law, however, specifies that the incident reports and jail logs are public records and contains no exception allowing for wholesale withholding of those documents.
¶ Powell County Sheriff Scott Howard of Deer Lodge is among those sheriffs who obeys the law by making his dispatch logs readily available.
¶ "If the public comes in, it's just a stroke of the key," he said. "It's part of my records-management system."
¶ Howard said requests for such information are rare, except for the local newspaper, which comes for a copy every day.
¶ What he supplies in the dispatch log is a brief summary of each call that comes to the office. If the call requires action by the department, it is assigned a case number. The case number is available on the log, and anyone wanting to know more about what happened can see him.
¶ Howard said he will answer questions when he can, but cannot disclose information about ongoing investigations, some juvenile cases or other data not subject to public review. The law backs Howard up in these cases.
¶ Dirty laundry that's nobody's business won't be disclosed either, the sheriff said.
¶ "We're pretty tight-lipped with private information," he said.

^Open Records-Taxes<
^All but two counties turned over tax records, audit shows<
^^By JEROME THARAUD=
^Havre Daily News=
¶ When a member of the public asked Blaine County deputy treasurer Mary Swenson how much the commission chairman paid in property taxes, she thought the request was a little unusual.
¶ "At first I wasn't going to answer him because I thought, `I wonder why they want that,'" Swenson recalled. "And then I thought, `Well, it's public information, so I guess it doesn't matter.'"
¶ Swenson provided the records promptly and without requiring any additional information from the person who asked.
¶ "Because they're public information," she said later in explaining her decision. "Anybody from off the street can come in and look at these tax books and see who's paid and who's not paid."
¶ Swenson, like officials in all but two Montana counties, followed the law in turning over the information, according to results of a statewide check of citizen access to public records that Montana news organizations conducted this summer. In each county, citizens conducting the survey asked for the property taxes paid by the chairman of the county commission.
¶ Officials in only Ravalli and Stillwater counties declined to give the information. In Cascade and Daniels counties, officials looked for the information but did not find any property records for the chairmen.
¶ In Stillwater County, staff in the treasurer's office told the surveyor requesting the information that they needed a tax ID number for the property and asked to see the surveyor's credentials. Then they told the citizen he would have to ask the chairman himself.
¶ The citizen reported later that Chairman Clifford Bare replied it was "none of my business" what he paid in property taxes.
¶ Bare said later he remembered the request but denied making that comment to the surveyor. Bare said he knows property tax information is public and that he directed the surveyor to the appropriate office.
¶ In Ravalli County, the citizen requesting the information was told to provide the tax ID number of the property, the property owner's name, or a legal description of the land. The auditor was referred from the treasurer's office to the clerk and recorder for more information about the property. Unlike officials in many other counties, those in Ravalli County declined to provide the county commission chairman's name to the citizen requesting that information.
¶ Other counties turned over the information, but only after requiring the surveyors requesting it to identify themselves and why they wanted the records. State law does not require citizens to identify themselves to get public information.
¶ That was a sore point with Stillwater County's Bare, who said he took issue with citizens declining to say who they were or what they were doing.
¶ "They didn't identify themselves or what their business was, and I think that's a pretty low way of doing business," he said.

^Open Records-Salaries<
^Most schools turned over information, survey shows.<
^By BARBARA LaBOE=
^The Montana Standard=
¶ Montana's school districts receive mostly high marks when it comes to releasing public documents, but not everyone agrees on what is public or who gets to see them.
¶ Citizens conducting a statewide check of public access to public records this summer visited the largest school district in each of the state's 56 counties, asking for the salaries of the superintendents of the largest school district. In 52 counties, they got the information.
¶ Officials in two counties declined to provide the information. School offices in one county, Wibaux, were closed when the survey was conducted, and the citizen surveyor in one county, Judith Basin, inadvertently sought the salary of the county superintendent of schools, rather than the superintendent of the largest district in the county. The county declined to release the salary of its superintendent.
¶ In Glacier County, an official said that only the secretary had the information and that the secretary couldn't be called out of a meeting.
¶ Fergus County officials said the salary information was in the superintendent's contract, but said the information couldn't be released because the contract was not public information.
¶ Officials in a number of counties were confused as to whether the superintendent's contract is a public document.
¶ In Ennis, an official initially said the document was public only "for our taxpayers" in Madison County, but eventually released the contract.
¶ In Toole County, a Shelby public schools clerk read aloud the salary but then abruptly left for lunch amid repeated requests for the contract. Another office employee also wouldn't release the contract.
¶ In Custer County, when asked to verify the salary in the contract, a Miles City school employee instead wrote the figure on a blank piece of paper and said that was sufficient.
¶ Billings school employees in Yellowstone County released the salary after several requests, adding it had already appeared in The Billings Gazette _ apparently not understanding the figure is public for everyone, not just the news media. As for the contract, one employee said: "We would get into all kinds of trouble for letting you see that private document."
¶ The survey this summer was a project conducted by Montana news organizations to gauge the public's access to public records. The citizen surveyors were instructed not to identify themselves or to say where they worked unless pressed by officials. The law doesn't require citizens to identify themselves to get public information.
¶ Still, officials in 28 counties asked the citizens for their names, and eight times they wanted to know the surveyor's employer. Officials in 17 counties wanted to know why the information was being requested, including Mike Perry, superintendent of the Chester public schools in Liberty County.
¶ Perry acknowledged his contract is public but he only gave the citizen his salary figure of $52,000, not his contract. Perry said he took that position because the citizen didn't identify himself _ and someone in the courthouse had called ahead, warning that a "stranger" was requesting documents.
¶ "If he had come in and told me who he was and what he was doing, fine," Perry said in a September interview, months after the survey. "But there was no way I was going to hand it over to someone I didn't know and (who) was acting like that."
¶ "I understand it's part of the law," he said of not having to identify oneself to see records. But in a small town, "I think you would have a harder time getting" the information without giving a name.
¶ In Mineral County, Superior school officials provided the salary, but not the contract that would corroborate the amount. They said it could take more than two weeks to process a written request, and they would charge up to $30 to supply the information.
¶ Superintendent Bill Woodford agreed in an October interview that the cost estimate given to the surveyor was exaggerated, but defended the district's +records+ policy.
¶ He said it was adopted with the help of the Montana School Boards Association and allows the district to prioritize requests.
¶ "Schools are public entities, but they are not necessarily +open+ to the public because we're really in the business of educating kids," Woodford said. "So we need to determine what types of information are essential in getting out and what types of information that we might be able to provide in a given time."
¶ And, like Perry, Woodford said his response to the information request was justified by his dislike for the surveyor's demeanor. He cited the person's "very passive-aggressive" behavior and initial refusal to give her name.
¶ He also said he worries about the motives behind information requests following the terrorist attacks. "And since 9/11, really, you have concerns about who these individuals are, and are they there under some other auspice besides getting these records?"
¶ Charles Brown, superintendent of the Lewistown public schools in Fergus County, teaches a class in legal policies for superintendents and school administrators. He said he's not surprised that school officials were unclear about public-+records+ requests. But he said he believes most refusals are based in ignorance, not defiance, of the law. In fact, one of his secretaries in Fergus County mistakenly told the citizen seeking information that neither the salary amount nor the contract was public, and Brown said even school administrators can be fuzzy on records law.
¶ Half the superintendents and administrators in Brown's legal policies class, for example, recently said no when asked if their contracts were public, he said. "And of course the professor lined them up on that real quick, but there is some confusion."

^Open Records-Courts,<
^Survey: court records turned over on first request most often<
^By RON TSCHIDA=
^Bozeman Daily Chronicle=
¶ Anne Melton learned a valuable lesson about access to public information.
¶ When a citizen asked the Liberty County clerk of court to look at the list of pending court cases, she provided the civil docket, but refused to let him see the criminal cases.
¶ "I'm not going to show them to you," she told the man. "That's just the way it is."
¶ Melton later learned from other court clerks that she made the wrong call.
¶ "So it's been a good lesson," said Melton, the clerk in Chester for the past two years.
¶ Melton was one of 56 court officials surveyed as part of a statewide check of citizen access to public records conducted this summer by Montana news organizations. Citizen surveyors asked court clerks to provide lists of pending civil and criminal court cases, and to provide a copy of a randomly selected case.
¶ In nine out of 10 cases, court officials provided the public documents and were typically characterized by those seeking the records as friendly and helpful.
¶ In 44 counties, or 78 percent, citizens received the records on their first request. In seven counties, multiple requests were needed, results of the statewide survey found.
¶ But in Lewis and Clark, Liberty and Wheatland counties, citizens were refused all or part of the information requested. Lewis and Clark County officials said they kept no court docket, instead saying they could look up individual cases only by name.
¶ In two counties _ Garfield and Wibaux _ citizens found the court offices closed. A trial was under way in Garfield County, and no one was available to provide information. In Wibaux County, the court office was locked. In Granite County, no attempt was made to visit the clerk of the court’s office, because of a misunderstanding by the surveyor. The clerk later said the office is opening during regular business hours.
¶ In Teton County, Clerk of Court Emile Kimmet wouldn't provide information until the citizen identified herself. And then, rather than turn over a file for the surveyor to review, Kimmet insisted on reading from the file.
¶ State law does not require citizens to identify themselves to get court +records+. That anonymity apparently bothered Kimmet.
¶ She said in a later interview that she believes it's rude for people to demand documents without identifying themselves.
¶ "This particular person was very short, curt," Kimmet said, "So I probably came back a little bit the same way."
¶ In Liberty County, Melton, who used to work for private businesses where almost everything was confidential, said her decision not to turn over the criminal docket was based in part on conversations she had with the previous court administrator.
¶ She said she still finds it "startling" that unless a judge seals a particular document, all court records are public, even wills, divorces and property taxes.
¶ She believes her Liberty County neighbors feel the same way and would be surprised to learn anyone can view court documents.
¶ "I don't think people realize they can do that," Melton said. "I'll be curious to see if I get any more activity after the articles come out. They think that it's confidential."

^Open Records-Minutes,<
^Most officials good about turning over council minutes<
^By MELODY MARTINSEN=
^Choteau Acantha=
¶ Most city officials in Montana willingly provide citizens with minutes of their city council or city commission meetings _ if those minutes have at least been typed into "draft" form.
¶ Citizens participating in a statewide check of access to public records this summer requested copies of the minutes of the city council or city commission's most recent meeting in Montana's 56 county seats.
¶ The citizens got minutes from one of the last two meetings in 52 of the counties. But only in 35 communities did they get the current minutes, even in draft or audiotape form. Another 17 city clerks, or 30 percent, did not have the notes from the most recent meeting put into minute form, but they offered the citizens copies of the completed minutes of the previous meeting.
¶ In most cases, the clerks and city officials were characterized by the surveyors as friendly and helpful. Many were curious about why surveyors were seeking the records.
¶ A few were openly suspicious and were reluctant to comply with the requests.
¶ In three cities _ Polson, Philipsburg and Butte _ municipal officials would not release minutes in note or draft form. In one town, Terry, the city office was closed during the noon hour when the surveyor arrived to request the records.
¶ Of the 52 city clerks that provided the information, 42, or 81 percent, complied with the auditor's first request.
¶ Montana law requires any board or agency covered by the state's open-meetings provisions to keep minutes of its meetings and to make the minutes available to the public. Montana court rulings require officials to provide both draft and final versions of public documents to citizens.
¶ Billings City Clerk Marita Herold was one of the many cooperative city officials who were asked to provide minutes. She not only supplied the surveyor with the document as requested, but she also provided dates of future Billings City Council meetings and the address of the city's Web site, where all minutes are posted. "It's all open to the public," Herold said.
¶ Brenda Schneider, the Superior town clerk and treasurer, was also characterized by the surveyor as friendly and helpful. At first she told the surveyor that she could not provide copies because her photocopier was broken, but then she managed to coax the sickly machine to spit out the needed copies at no charge. In tiny Winnett, the city clerk readily provided copies of the minutes but also pointed out that the minutes are routinely posted on a bulletin board near the front door.
¶ However, several clerks were suspicious of the request and at first were reluctant to provide citizens with copies of draft minutes versions that had been typed but not yet approved by city councils. Most of those officials, however, provided even draft copies on second or third request.
¶ Tammy Cahill, Scobey's city clerk, said the draft minutes were "not official," but when the citizen requested the draft copies, she furnished them without any trouble.
¶ Agnes Fowler, Conrad's finance officer, however, required the citizen requesting the records to give her name and where she worked before she would consider allowing draft minutes to leave the office. Fowler also said she would have to call the city attorney for authorization, but at that point, the mayor intervened and directed her to give the citizen copies of the draft documents. Virginia Yardley, who in June was the Philipsburg city clerk, did not provide minutes of the current council meeting, saying that the council does not consider the minutes public until they have been approved at the next month's meeting. Yardley since has retired as city clerk.
¶ Aggi Loeser, Polson city clerk, said she had not yet typed the notes from the last City Council meeting into minute form. She would not provide the notes when asked, but agreed to mail them when she completed them by the next week.

^Open Records-Fees,686<
^Fees charged for records vary greatly by county<
^By CHERY SABOL=
^The Daily Inter Lake=
¶ Government documents available to Montanans as public information are not necessarily free to the public, and agencies charge a wide range of fees for getting the records, a recent statewide survey found.
¶ A project this summer by news organizations to check the ability of citizens to obtain public records sent surveyors into 56 counties seeking city council minutes, property tax records, court files, and information from schools and sheriff's offices.
¶ In some cases, information was there simply for the asking. Offices in 18 counties did not charge a fee for any documents copied for the volunteers conducting the survey.
¶ But the right to get public documents had a hefty price tag elsewhere. The Lewis and Clark County sheriff's office, for instance, charges citizens $5 for every single-page incident report. There are typically 125 to 150 incident reports filed each day. The total price for all of them would be $625 to $750.
¶ Lincoln County also charges $5 for each of its initial offense reports, although it does not collect a fee for a copy of the list of calls handled by the sheriff's office.
¶ Fees for copying court documents are set by law. Fees for other information are generally required to be "reasonable," representing the actual cost of copies.
¶ A 1996 governor's memorandum set the standard fee for state government photocopies at 10-25 cents each. Then-Gov. Marc Racicot pointed out that in some offices where original documents are kept, an employee is needed to supervise anyone looking through records, but there is no authority to charge a fee for simply accessing the information.
¶ The Racicot directive said copying charges depend on a number of factors, including whether copies are made by the requestor or a government employee, how many copies are needed, and whether the information had to be compiled or developed by an employee or is already available in the form requested.
¶ According to the news organizations' survey, no fees were assessed for requested documents in Big Horn, Broadwater, Carbon, Cascade, Chouteau, Daniels, Granite, Hill, Madison, McCone, Park, Phillips, Prairie, Roosevelt, Sanders, Sheridan, Stillwater and Wibaux counties.
¶ City council minutes cost between 15 and 50 cents per page in Garfield, Missoula, Petroleum, Powder River, Rosebud and Yellowstone counties. Only school district offices in Meagher, Mineral, Teton and Wheatland counties charged a fee for copies.
¶ The only sheriff's offices that wanted payment for copies were in Gallatin, Sweet Grass and Lewis and Clark counties. The fees in Gallatin and Sweet Grass counties were 25 cents per page.
¶ The fee of $5 per page that the Lewis and Clark County sheriff's office requires is by far the largest. The sheriff's incident reports are maintained along with the Helena Police Department incident reports in a centralized computer system. The fee for copies of any of the incident reports is set by a special city-county board.
¶ Questions about the fees were referred to Helena Police Lt. Roger Johnson. He said the fee reflects the fact that the incident reports are not simply copied, but must be reviewed and certain information blacked out before a separate edited version is given to the public. Information that is blacked out may include the names of juveniles or victims, Johnson said.
¶ He said the board compared its costs with some other counties this year and was satisfied that the fees are not out of line, even though most other counties did not charge at all.
¶ District Court fees are set by state law. However, the media survey found that the charges still varied considerably and, in some cases, were not charged at all.

^BC-MT--Open Records-Methods,<
^Montana's audit based on similar state surveys<
^By MIKE McINALLY=
^Missoulian=
¶ At least on paper, the Montana Constitution and state laws put a premium on openness in government, guaranteeing citizens access to public records, meetings and information.
¶ But how does the state's promise of an accessible government play out in practice?
¶ That was the question that a coalition of state news organizations set out to answer this summer with Montana's first statewide check of the public's ability to see public records.
¶ Although this marks the first time that such a survey has been undertaken here, Montana's survey follows on the heels of efforts in more than two dozen states.
¶ Ian Marquand of Missoula's KPAX-TV, Montana chapter president of the Society of Professional Journalists and, until recently, co-chairman of the SPJ's national Freedom of Information Committee, says the surveys often show the difference between open government in theory and reality.
¶ "It's a way to rate how well the laws work in practice," Marquand said. "This was a novel, innovative way to get a real test."
¶ Don Asher, an editor at the Times of Northwest Indiana newspaper in Munster, was a key player in one of the first state surveys, conducted in 1998 in Indiana. That Indiana survey covered all 92 of Indiana's counties and involved a number of the state's newspapers.
¶ And, Asher said, it got results: Indiana's governor and Legislature both reacted to the survey's results by taking steps to make it easier for the public to get public records.
¶ Asher said he has watched closely as other states have done their own surveys and is struck by the similarities.
¶ "It really is pretty consistent," he said. "Law enforcement is by and large the worst at compliance" a finding that is repeated in the Montana survey.
¶ The Montana project was organized with the help of the Montana Freedom of Information Hotline, a nonprofit group that pays for lawyers who advise journalists and others members of the public on open-government issues.
¶ The Montana survey followed roughly the same pattern as surveys in other states. Members of the hotline board identified which records to seek in each county. In many cases, the decisions were driven by problems Montana journalists had encountered. The records sought in each county were:
¶ _Jail occupancy rosters
¶ _Sheriff's department incident reports
¶ _The amount of property taxes paid by the chairman of the county commission
¶ _The salary of the superintendent of the largest school district in each county
¶ _Minutes of the most recent meeting of the city council or town commission
¶ _Listings of recent court cases filed in district court and a randomly selected court file
¶ Montana news organizations were charged with recruiting surveyors for each county, a task made more difficult by the fact that surveyors had to be people who were generally unknown in the counties they surveyed: The goal was to test not what sort of access was enjoyed by reporters, but the type of access given to people who were strangers to county officials. That's why surveyors were instructed not to identify themselves or to say for whom they worked unless pressed. State law does not require members of the public to identify themselves to get access to public information.
¶ The goal was to have the surveys done in each county on Thursday, June 5. In other states where surveys were performed, word spread fast among county officials. The Montana organizers worried that such talk among officials could skew the results, and so the hope was to limit that by doing all the surveys on the same day.
¶ That didn't happen. Although most Montana counties were surveyed on June 5, in at least one county, a scheduling conflict forced the surveyor to do his work before the official date. And the delay in finding surveyors in each county meant that some of the surveys were performed in July, August and early September.
¶ The surveys were sent to The Associated Press in Helena to be compiled.
¶ For his part, Marquand said he hopes those survey will bring national freedom-of-information issues home to Montanans.
¶ "We hear about national problems," he said. "But for the average citizen, freedom of information is something that occurs at the courthouse or at the school board or whatever local entity you care to name. We hope that the results surprise and maybe shock people."

^Open Records-Training<
^Training in records issue varies for government workers<
^By CAROLYNN BRIGHT=
^Independent Record=
¶ Most professional organizations representing government officials make a concerted effort to educate their members about what information is public and what is private, and the effort appears to pay off, a statewide survey to measure citizens' access to public records shows.
¶ Groups such as those representing court clerks, school boards and county treasurers that tutor their members on public records rules were more likely to provide the information to the public, the survey found. On the other hand, law enforcement, which gets little such training, was the least likely to turn over public records.
¶ The statewide survey was part of a project Montana news organizations conducted this summer to test how well government officials in all 56 counties comply with the state's open records laws.
¶ Court clerks and county treasurers had some of the highest compliance rates.
¶ "We do make an effort to get the information out there," said Paulette DeHart of Helena, president of the Montana Association of Clerks and Recorders. "It's up to the individual to take it home and utilize it."
¶ Members of the association, along with members of the Montana County Treasurers' Association and the Montana Association of Clerks of District Court, all receive training in open records requirements, which is bolstered by discussions at annual conventions. The Montana School Boards Association provides its members with handbooks that spell out privacy issues that may come up.
¶ But officials also rely on each other a lot to sort out the gray areas.
¶ "We can always call another clerk of court for questions on specific types of information," said Cheryle Demmon, president of the court clerks' organization.
¶ In more than 90 percent of the counties, surveyors received the public information requested from school administrators, clerks and recorders, court clerks and county treasurers.
¶ But results were different in sheriff's offices, where personnel get little formal training in public records issues. Forty-five percent of the state's county sheriffs or their staff did not provide jail rosters, and 41 percent refused to provide incident reports for the previous 24 hours. Both records are public under state law.
¶ Greg Hintz, president of the Montana Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, said individual counties often set their own policies regarding the release of information. Those policies, he said, are established with assistance from the attorney general's office and under the direction of city and county attorneys.
¶ The release of public information is covered briefly as part of a 40-hour course offered to new sheriffs, but it's up to individual sheriffs and their advisers to determine how to translate that information, Hintz said.
¶ "I know everybody's getting the same information _ it's just what they do with it when they get home," Hintz said.
¶ The Montana Association of Counties organizes a special orientation workshop every two years for newly elected county officials. The workshop includes sessions on the public's right to attend meetings and review documents, said Jack Holstrom, an attorney and personnel services administrator for the association.
¶ While the workshops are usually well-attended, Holstrom said they rarely attract any new sheriffs.
¶ "Mostly its newly elected county commissioners," he said.
¶ New law enforcement officers receive training at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy, but that training does not cover the release of public information. Howard Webb, administrator of the school, said the academy's course is relatively short and the trainees aren't expected to be in a position to release information when they report for duty anyway.
¶ Mike Batista, administrator of the state Division of Criminal Investigation, said different training opportunities are available for law enforcement officers as they progress through the ranks of the departments, with courses offered by the state and FBI. However, responsibility for using that training falls to the individual departments, he said.
¶ Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath said the state Justice Department, which oversees the academy, is constantly scrutinizing freedom-of-information issues and how to balance the public's right to know with the right to privacy. But, McGrath said, more may need to be done.
¶ "It's the kind of thing we should be looking at with administrators," he said, adding that the release of public information is a priority, and if problems need to be addressed, his office is willing to do that.
¶ Batista agreed that training regarding the release of information by officers may be an area that could be improved.
¶ The news organization survey "does definitely speak to a training need, whether it's offered as basic or as advanced training," he said.
¶ For any group or individual that wants to take the initiative to become better versed in what information is public, the state offers ongoing training in areas including open meeting laws and public records for willing participants. John Moore, director of the Department of Administration's Professional Development Center, is constantly on the move offering instruction to groups whose grasp of the public vs. privacy issue runs the gamut.
¶ "For a lot of people on the front line, the big challenge is to figure out what is releasable and what is not," Moore said. "In my experience, for the most part, people want to do the right thing."
¶ Moore added that law enforcement officers appear to face that problem on a larger scale than many other public officials and it isn't always easy to discern what needs to be released to members of the public.
¶ As a result, he teaches classes geared directly to law enforcement issues in order to address that problem.Those courses are accredited and can be applied to continuing legal education for officers who attend either individually or by referral from their respective departments.
¶ "Training is always available," Moore added. "Whether people take advantage of that is the question."

^Open Records-Tips<
^Know your rights with open records, official says<
^By IAN MARQUAND=
^Society of Professional Journalists=
¶ Who says Montanans have the right to see observe government at work?
¶ The Montana Constitution does, and that's all you need to be armed with when you're requesting public information from government officials. You don't have to give your name. You don't have to say why you want it. You don't have to say where you live or for whom you work.
¶ Specifically, in Article II, Sections 8 and 9, the constitution guarantees Montanans the right to participate in government and examine government documents housed at any state agency, local government office, school district, even the county weed board. That includes draft documents and works in progress. Since 2001, state law has included government e-mails, too.
¶ According to the constitution, the only reason a document can be withheld is when the demand for individual privacy clearly exceeds the public's right to know.
¶ That said, there are scattered exceptions in state law that keep certain records out of public view. For instance, records dealing with ongoing criminal investigations, public safety or the security of public facilities. However, these statutory exceptions could be trumped by the constitution if they were challenged in court.
¶ Citizens in Montana have a right to inspect documents at any time during normal business hours and to ask for copies of records for a "reasonable fee."
¶ What does "reasonable" mean? According to Montana law, it means the actual cost of producing them. In real world terms, if it only costs a nickel to make a simple black-and-white copy of an 8 1/2-by-11 document in a commercial print shop, it shouldn't cost any more in a government office. This applies to computerized records as well as paper records.
¶ Some disagreements over government records end up in court and, almost invariably, judges or the courts rule in favor of disclosure.
¶ John Shontz, attorney for the Montana Freedom of Information Hotline, has advice for citizens denied access by a government employee to public records:
¶ _Play the legal card. Remind the employee that you have the right to the information under the law and that you're prepared to go to court over the issue. "Advise the employee that he/she will be named personally as a defendant in the suit," Shontz said. He also advises telling the employee that, if you sue and win, the agency may be ordered to pay your attorney's fees. Also, a judge can overturn any agency decision made to withhold documents from you.
¶ _Ask for the boss. If the information still is not forthcoming, Shontz suggests that citizens "demand to see the employee's supervisor and repeat Step One."
¶ _Have a cell phone handy. If all else fails, call Shontz's law office using the Montana FOI Hotline number (406-442-6520) and request assistance while you're still in the office. Bringing a lawyer into the discussion shows you're serious.
¶ For more information: The Montana Freedom of Information Hotline has a number of publications that can help the public understand the law on government records and meetings, ranging from wallet-sized cards (with the text of Montana's open government laws) to a new, detailed "desk book" that explains laws and relevant court decisions step-by-step. For more information on any of these publications, contact the Montana FOI Hotline in Helena at (406) 442-6520.

^Open Records-Editorial<
^Audit a reminder to officials and citizens of rights, responsibilities
By the Miles City Star
¶ It's no surprise to journalists that information is sometimes hard to obtain from government officials, even if it is public record. But at least reporters have their credentials and a working knowledge of open records laws to fall back on.
¶ Private citizens have just as much right to public records, but, as a recent statewide audit found, they sometimes have an even tougher time accessing the information that is gathered in their interest.
¶ News organizations coordinated their efforts this summer to conduct a freedom-of-information audit, sending volunteers to various public agencies in all of Montana's counties to collect specific pieces of information.
¶ Auditors, some of them reporters and others interested citizens, were instructed not to give their names or their purpose unless pressed by authorities. The focus was not on the materials gathered, but on the officials' willingness to provide them, in adherence with the law.
¶ It's encouraging that most local government officials provided the information. In requests for 336 public records, auditors had an 81 percent success rate. Many public servants understand that this is an important part of their job, and not just a nuisance.
¶ Audit organizers expected some difficulties, as well, but the results were still surprising. Some unpleasant trends surfaced, including open hostility and refusals to turn over documents unless the surveyor identified himself and his intent.
¶ The worst offenders were, ironically, law enforcement agencies _ sheriffs and their staffs, in particular. In more than four out of every 10 instances, they refused requests for recent incident reports and jail rosters. One sheriff said he didn't care what the law said _ he wouldn't hand over crime calls without a court order.
¶ It is a disturbing thought that some people who are entrusted with the job of keeping our public records seem determined to keep us from them. It may not be intentional; in many cases it could just be a lack of knowledge about what the public has a right to review.
¶ In other cases, public employees limit access to "sensitive information," as in the case of the district court clerk who censored the roster of court cases, leaving out ones "the public doesn't need to know about."
¶ Some agencies channel all requests for records through a single person, usually an administrator, which makes it difficult if that person is absent.
¶ And, sadly, there are those employees who arrogantly assume they can pick and choose who views "their records" and why.
¶ The FOI audit was conducted to encourage accountability for officials and to remind people of their rights as citizens.
¶ In order for us to participate in our government and to be an informed citizenry, it is essential that we have access to its records and its proceedings. That means everything _ not just what officials would have us see.
¶ People taking an interest in their government shouldn't be cross-examined, whatever their purpose. The law doesn't ask why they want records+, and neither should officials.
¶ The FOI audit is a welcome refresher course for everyone on rights that we shouldn't be taking for granted. We hope it will help to clear up unnecessary conflict and engender a spirit of cooperation between citizens and their government representatives.