Office of Information Practices

March 2, 2012

Both bills proposed by the state Office of Information Practices (OIP) will be crossing over from the Senate to the House as S.B. 2858, S.D. 1 (appeals bill) and S.B. 2859, S.D. 1 (Sunshine bill). The bills were amended as previously described in OIP’s What’s New articles on February 7 and 15, 2012. Because the House Judiciary Committee decided to hold the companion House bills (H.B. 2596 and H.B. 2597), these Senate bills will be the vehicles for legislative consideration of OIP’s proposals.

Also crossing over from the Senate to the House is S.B. 2234, S.D. 1, which requires all state and county boards to electronically post Sunshine Law meeting agendas, will be crossing over from the Senate to the House. S.B. 2234, S.D. 1 additionally requires state (but not county) boards to electronically post, within 30 days after a public meeting, the board’s minutes as well as copies of written materials that were presented to the board at the meeting (“attachments”). Although the bill has an otherwise intentionally defective enactment date, the new requirement to electronically post minutes and attachments will go into effect this July 1, 2012. OIP intends to seek additional funding in a related bill, S.B. 2233, S.D. 1, to be able to conduct statewide workshops and handle increased inquiries about these new Sunshine Law requirements as well as boards’ Uniform Information Practices Act (“UIPA”) obligations to redact personal, confidential, or excluded information from meeting attachments before electronically posting them.

In the meantime, boards may want to study OIP’s existing guides and videos on Sunshine Law and UIPA requirements, which can be found at hawaii.gov/oip/training. For information about OIP’s bills’ progress, and other open government news, look here on the What’s New page, or ask to be placed on OIP’s e-mail list for weekly What’s New updates.