Vigo County Emergency Management, Human Resources, and Auditor violated open records law –

Terre Haute, IN. (ECWd) –

It appears to us that Vigo County and its agencies are having a problem complying with Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act (“APRA”) – similar to what we see across Illinois.

A request was filed for conflict of interest statements and payroll records, among other things, for one individual from the Vigo County Auditor, Vigo County Human Resources, and from Vigo County Emergency Management Agency. None of them complied with the law, and the Indiana Public Access Counselor has issued advisory opinions stating so.

Within the process of seeking public records and filing a complaint of violations, we have noticed that the Indiana PAC is required to issue an advisory opinion within 30 business days of receipt of complaint – something Illinois needs to think about adding to our FOIA law, since in Illinois it has become commonplace to wait 1, 2, 3, and even 4 years for an opinion on violations of the Illinois FOIA (gives us an indication of where our AG’s priorities are placed).

The IN-PAC Opinions state the Vigo County Human Resources violated APRA by failing to respond to a request for records within the 7 days required by the Act and that Vigo County Emergency Management Agency failed to respond to the request for records and also failed to respond to the Indiana Public Access Counselor.

Read the Indiana PAC Opinions below:

[documentcloud url=”http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2938942-20160701123018386.html” sidebar=false text=false pdf=false]

[documentcloud url=”http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2938941-20160701122501743.html” sidebar=false text=false pdf=false]

.
Please consider a donation to the Edgar County Watchdogs.
[wp_eStore_donate id=1]
.