Approp Open Records 2-27-13

1 2 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 3 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE 4 MAIN CAPITOL 5 ROOM 140 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA 6 7 BUDGET HEARING OFFICE OF OPEN RECORDS 8 9 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2013 4:09 P.M. 10 11 BEFORE 12 HONORABLE WILLIAM F ADOLPH, JR., Majority Chairman 13 HONORABLE RYAN AUMENT HONORABLE KAREN BOBACK 14 HONORABLE JIM CHRISTIANA HONORABLE GARY DAY 15 HONORABLE GORDON DENLINGER HONORABLE BRIAN ELLIS 16 HONORABLE GARTH EVERETT HONORABLE MAUREE GINGRICH 17 HONORABLE GLEN GRELL HONORABLE SE TH GRO VE 18 HONORABLE THOMAS KILLION HONORABLE DAVID MILLARD 19 HONORABLE DUANE MILNE HONORABLE MARK MUSTIO 20 HONORABLE DONNA OBERLANDER HONORABLE BERNIE O ’NEILL 21 HONORABLE MICHAEL PEIFER HONORABLE SCOTT PETRI 22 HONORABLE JEFF PYLE HONORABLE CURT SONNEY 23 HONORABLE JOSEPH MARKOSEK, Minority Chairman HONORABLE BRENDAN F. BOYLE 24 HONORABLE MATTHEW BRADFORD HONORABLE MICHELLE BROWNLEE 25 HONORABLE MIKE CARROLL 1 BEFORE: (cont’d) 2 HONORABLE H. SCOTT CONKLIN HONORABLE MADELEINE DEAN 3 HONORABLE DEBERAH KULA HONORABLE TIM MAHONEY 4 HONORABLE MICHAEL O ’BRIEN HONORABLE CHERELLE PARKER 5 HONORABLE JOHN SABATINA HONORABLE STEVEN SANTARSIERO 6 HONORABLE JAKE WHEATLEY 7 ALSO PRESENT: 8 DAVID DONLEY, MAJORITY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 9 RITCHIE LAFAVER, MAJORITY DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DAN CLARK, MAJORITY CHIEF COUNSEL 10 MIRIAM FOX, MINORITY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BERYL KUHR, MINORITY LEGAL COUNSEL 11 HONORABLE KERRY BENNINGHOFF 12 HONORABLE PAUL CLYMER HONORABLE HAL ENGLISH 13 HONORABLE MATT GABLER HONORABLE MARK GILLEN 14 HONORABLE R. LEE JAMES HONORABLE RON MARSICO 15 HONORABLE DARYL METCALFE HONORABLE KATHY RAPP 16 HONORABLE RICK SACCONE HONORABLE TODD STEPHENS 17 HONORABLE WILL TALLMAN HONORABLE MIKE TOBASH 18 HONORABLE MIKE TURZAI HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS 19 HONORABLE MARK COHEN HONORABLE MARGO DAVIDSON 20 HONORABLE PAMELA DELISSIO HONORABLE MARK LONGIETTI 21 HONORABLE STEVE MCCARTER HONORABLE PHYLLIS MUNDY 22 HONORABLE JIM ROEBUCK 23 BRENDA J. PARDUN, RPR 24 P. O. BOX 278 MAYTOWN, PA 17550 25 717-426-1596 PHONE/FAX 1 INDEX 2 NAME PAGE 3 TERRY MUTCHLER 4 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 4 OFFICE OF OPEN RECORDS 5 J. CHADWICK SCHNEE 32 ASSISTANT CHIEF COUNSEL 6 OFFICE OF OPEN RECORDS 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you. I ’d like 3 to call to order the House Appropriations budget 4 hearing for the Office of Open Records. With us 5 today is the executive director Terry Mutchler. 6 Good afternoon. 7 MS. MUTCHLER: Hello, Mr. Chairman. 8 How are you? 9 CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Nice to see you 10 again. 11 MS. MUTCHLER: As always. Thank you. 12 CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: I think we have 13 everybody here. And we’d like to start the hearing 14 with your opening. 15 MS. MUTCHLER: Great. Thank you. 16 Well, Mr. Chairman and members of the 17 committee, today I ’m joined by Chadwick Schnee, our 18 assistant chief counsel. 19 CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Terry, if you don’t 20 mind, you can lift that up and come right up close 21 t o you. 22 MS. MUTCHLER: Close enough now? How’s 23 that? 24 CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: That’s much better. 25 MS. MUTCHLER: Well, members of the 1 committee and Mr. Chairman, thank you for the 2 invitation to come and talk to you. I know you 3 guys have had a long afternoon and we'll be very, 4 very short. 5 I'm joined today by Chadwick Schnee, 6 who is our assistant chief counsel. And I'm here 7 to just — I'm not going to belabor by re-reading 8 our — the written testimony that you have, but I'd 9 just like to give you a couple of highlights. 10 Since the doors opened at the Office of 11 Open Records, we have had an 89 percent increase in 12 our workload to the Office of Open Records since 13 you created this very strong law, and it continues 14 to grow. 15 Last year, we handled two thousand one 16 hundred eighty-eight appeals to the Office of Open 17 Records. That's in addition to two hundred legal 18 cases in the supreme court, the commonwealth court 19 and court of common pleas, about twenty thousand 20 inquiries to our office, hearings, mediations, and 21 over eight hundred Right-to-Know requests to us, 22 because we're also subject. We did this with six 23 appeals officers and one chief counsel. 24 Each year I come, I sort of feel like a 25 broken record, but I honestly can't present to the 1 committee what I think we have our hand on, because 2 the first year we had one thousand fifty-nine 3 appeals, and we’ve had an 89 percent increase since 4 then . 5 We operate right now on a budget, 6 thanks to you, of 1.374 million dollars, which was 7 an increase for us. The governor’s proposed budget 8 is 1.488 million, and we certainly appreciate that 9 increase offer to us in this way, but the reality 10 is that that would leave us with twenty-six 11 thousand dollars to run our office. That includes 12 copying, postage, trainings, office expenses. 13 I might add here that we are in a 14 unique situation, under this law. We are housed 15 within the Department of Commerce and Economic 16 Development, and it kind of gets weird sometimes. 17 We have to rule against them often in cases, or at 18 least have cases come before them in that way, but 19 they are actually very, very helpful to us in the 20 administrative end of this, and -- and they handle 21 our HR for us. They handle our payroll. They 22 handle a lot of our expenses, and they don’t charge 23 us for that. And so that’s something that I think 24 the committee should also be aware of as it 25 considers our increase and us being housed in 1 DCED . 2 We’re asking this year for the 3 committee to consider, given our workload and what 4 we need to do it, we are asking for an increase up 5 to 1.8 million dollars. Since I took this office 6 in 2008, I ’ ve said 1. 5 would cover it, and I 7 believed that. And we’ve been shooting for that. 8 But with the increased pension costs and the 9 increased costs, some of which you just heard about 10 in your last testimony here, sets of testimony, 11 really make this not doable for us. 12 And so, as we look toward Senate Bill 13 444 kind of rewriting some of what we do at the 14 Office of Open Records, we’re trying to just convey 15 to you that I know everybody comes and asks for 16 money. It’s hard to believe that we’re telling you 17 that we have an 89 percent increase in our 18 workload. It’s continuing to grow. And if you add 19 in Penn State, Temple, Lincoln, and Pitt on the 20 state-relateds to be covered under this law, the 21 workload is — I can’t even — I can’t even guess 22 how deep that workload is going to be. 23 I just want to take one moment to tell 24 you some of the issues that we see, because we get 25 asked these questions a lot. There is a lot of 1 hot-button issues that come before us. Home 2 addresses is a big one. Commercial fees, you know, 3 where companies use the Right-to-Know Law and then 4 sort of turn around and sell the information. 5 That's done on the backs of taxpayers, and that's a 6 big i ssue. 7 Inmates, we've had many discussions 8 with many members of the committee and other folks, 9 31 percent of the appeals that come to the Office 10 of Open Records come from inmates. 11 The largest portion still is citizens. 12 It's 59. 13 Media, for people that are interested, 14 only has 4 percent of what comes to the Office of 15 Open Records. 16 So, you know, there's issues that need 17 to be dealt with in this regard. 18 The last point I want to make is 19 there's a great misconception about the work that 20 we do. We're often accused, for lack of a better 21 work, of being an advocate and that we -- folks 22 often say that we advocate on behalf of citizens at 23 the expense of agencies. We're an advocate, but 24 we're an advocate for the Right-to-Know Law, and we 25 apply that as fairly and as evenly across the board 1 as we can. And, yes, it’s difficult to rule 2 against, you know, agencies, the governor’s office, 3 local agencies, but, I mean, that’s sort of the 4 nature of the beast here. 5 And so, as we move forward, we’re 6 asking for your help in — in two ways. Of course, 7 in the financial component, of increasing the - 8 you know, our earmark to the office, but also in 9 being supportive of some legislative changes that 10 would, we think, help reduce -- help, actually, not 11 reduce, it would help make a more effective Right- 12 to-Know Law. And one of side perks to that, of 13 course, is reducing some of the workload that we 14 see.

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