Office of Information Practices

March 12 was the legislative deadline for bills to cross from their originating chamber to be considered by the other chamber.  Two bills that survived the crossover deadline would, respectively, amend the Uniform Information Practices Act (UIPA), chapter 92F, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS), and the Sunshine Law, part I of chapter 92, HRS.

Senate Bill 2312, S.D. 1, Relating to Government Contracts, would add a new UIPA provision addressing the status of records created by a non-profit, business, or other non-government entity that contracts with a government agency to perform an agency function.  Some agency contracts already give the agency the right to inspect contract-related records held by the contractor.  If the agency then receives a record request for records related to those contracts, it has the contractual right to obtain them and,  generally, provide them in response to the record request, subject, to the UIPA’s exceptions to disclosure.  Under this bill, every agency contract for the performance of an agency function (except Employees’ Retirement System contracts) would have to require the contractor to retain related records according to the agency’s record retention schedule.  Those records would be explicitly deemed government records for the purpose of the UIPA, and contractors would be required to provide them to the agency upon request.

S.B. 2849, S.D. 2, Relating to Public Meetings, would require a board’s meeting notice to place the information required by section 92-7, HRS, including the agenda of items to be considered, at the beginning of the notice.  Information not required under section 92-7 could only be set out after the statutorily required information.  The bill would also add a requirement for meeting notices to include a statement of where a board packet may be viewed when applicable.