Open records chief: State is training workers to use phone feature that avoids public records requests

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From The Associated Press via Brad Bumstead in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Trainers are telling state workers learning a new phone system that they can use an instant-messaging feature to avoid citizens’ public record requests, the state’s open records director told Gov. Tom Corbett in a letter.

“During several different training sessions for the implementation of the new statewide telephone system, state employees were specifically instructed that certain telephone messages and instant messages on this system are not subject to the state’s open records law,” wrote Terry Mutchler, executive director of the Office of Open Records. It happened in at least four training sessions, she said.

In general, phone records are covered by the 2008 law, Mutchler wrote.

But “there’s no way to retain” so-called instant messages, which are intended for “quick, routine communications,” said Dan Egan, spokesman for the Office of Administration, an agency under Corbett.

Read more about how the state’s new telephone system could impact agencies’ responsibilities under the right-to-know law.

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