Guest Column
Joseph Tyrrell
& Guy Baehr
OPRA’s promise remains unfulfilled
New Jersey failed to fulfill the full promise of its new open public records law during the landmark law’s first year of operation
Implementation of the new law by records custodians at all levels of government went more smoothly than expected, but the state agency set up to resolve public complaints about access to records is plagued by excessive delays and a growing backlog of unresolved disputes.
It was clear it would take some time for the new Government Records Council to get up and running, but it’s been a year now, and we’re not seeing much progress. In fact, according to the council’s own figures, it has a backlog of 83 unresolved complaints, almost as many as the number of cases it has resolved since its creation. Instead of using the streamlined process set forth in the law, the GRC is using cumbersome procedures that slow things down. That’s unacceptable.
The Legislature created the council to provide citizens seeking public records with an alternative method to resolve disputes that would be quicker and less expensive than filing a lawsuit in state Superior Court. So far, what we’ve seen is that the cases that have gone directly to court have been resolved more quickly than those that have been decided by the council..
The Government Records Council was modeled after Connecticut’s 30-year-old Free-dom of Information Commission, which takes an average of 10 weeks to resolve formal complaints that go before the commission.
The data included in the GRC’s monthly reports does not permit us to calculate the average time it takes the council to investigate and decide a citizen’s complaint here in New Jersey, but it’s safe to say that it’s at least double the 10 weeks it takes in Connecticut. That’s not at all what the Legislature intended.
Two factors seem to be causing the delays and adding to the backlog:
• Severe understaffing — the GRC currently has a staff of seven, including one full-time and one part-time deputy attorney general. By comparison, the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission has a staff of 16, including seven attorneys.
• Excessively bureaucratic procedures — despite a specific directive in the OPRA legislation to streamline its procedures the GRC has evolved an overly complex and bureaucratic system and proposed changes, such as having some cases heard by state administrative law judges may slow it even more.
The people of New Jersey deserve more than a shoestring operation to ensure their right to know.
Joseph Tyrrell is the president and Guy Baehr is the corresponding secretary of the New Jersey Foundation for Open Govern-ment, a nonpartisan coalition of civic, journalistic and public interest organizations based in Hillsborough.