Legislators should make transparency a top priority in 2027

Wyoming legislators should make strengthening the Public Records Act and other government transparency initiatives their center of attention in next year’s legislative session. This would build on the progress made this session for medical cost transparency.

Lawmakers should be applauded for making hospital pricing more available and clear this year so that residents can make informed financial decisions about where to seek care. But the people of the Cowboy State deserve a much more robust set of laws to make state and local government fully accountable to the people.

SF 49 – the “Public records act revisions” – would be a great place to start. The bill failed introduction this year but could be reintroduced in the 2027 legislative session. It would make fees for processing records requests uniform throughout the state, require government entities to acknowledge receipt of a request within three days and to release information within 10 days barring a request for an exemption. It also makes those who “knowingly or intentionally” violate those provisions liable to be sued for up to $2,000.

As the law stands, different government jurisdictions can charge wildly different fees and may or may not respond to requests for information in a timely fashion. They also may not make things available electronically, as I found out last summer when investigating how certain Fremont County sales tax dollars were being used for economic development. Instead of creating a searchable and transparent website listing recipients of sales tax grants with contact information, descriptions of how grants were supposed to be used and how they actually were used, the county housed what incomplete records it held in file folders filled with printed emails and other documents.

I was told that I could look at the records in the presence of a county employee and photocopy the documents. I couldn’t help but think, is this how government should be run in the 2020s?

As I discovered, many grant recipients did not use grant money as promised, didn’t complete projects on time and were not audited. It would have been a lot easier and faster to find this information and hold grant recipients accountable if the information had been online.

Here’s some history on why it’s especially important to strengthen transparency in Wyoming. Ten years ago the Center for Public Integrity ranked Wyoming last in the country for access to public information because fewer than 12.5 percent of government agencies responded to public records requests.

OpentheBooks.com, a nationally recognized nonprofit that pursues government transparency at the local, state and federal levels, in 2015 made a request under the Wyoming Public Records Act to then State Auditor Cynthia Cloud for the state “checkbook.” This information about how the state spent taxpayer dollars had been previously published online. She didn’t respond. It asked again in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Cloud denied the requests, making Wyoming one of three states in the country not to provide the information. She finally reversed course, after imposing a $7,820 fee.

However, because she slow-rolled the information, OpenTheBooks.com and Equality State Taxpayers Association sued Cloud in 2018. Fast forward to 2019, newly-elected State Auditor Kristi Racines released the information within a month of taking office – and returned the exorbitant fee because she found it cost less than $180 to produce the information. While she should be applauded for her quick action at the state level to make government spending accountable to the people, local governments have not followed her example.

Legislators should review the American Legislative Exchange Council’s “Taxpayer Transparency Act” for ideas on how to make all levels of Wyoming government accountable to the people.

Current law dramatically favors government at the expense of the people and discourages public inquiries. Cowboy State residents shouldn’t have to be rich or be required to take a day off of work to review paper documents to hold government accountable.

The good news is that public records reform has been added to the interim work plan for lawmakers. May 2027 be the year that state legislators make Wyoming a beacon for transparency and redeem its years of keeping state residents in the dark.