Legislation Would Exempt Voice Mail From FOI Laws

By Jan Howard

Proposed legislation sponsored by Sen Andrew Roraback (R-30) of Goshen would block the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) from requiring the maintaining of voice mails as public records.

A draft opinion from the FOIC was released in January that would require state and municipal governments to maintain voice mails as public records similar to other public documents.

Sen Roraback’s proposed bill would prohibit the FOIC from forcing any government agency to transcribe voice mail messages. The Government Administration and Elections Committee has approved the bill.

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal considers the FOIC’s proposed requirement an unfunded mandate that just does not make sense.

“If I’m stopped in the hall and someone speaks to me, it’s not public record,” he said, “but if it’s on voice mail, it is a public record?”

The Connecticut Council of Municipalities, of which Newtown is a member, has opposed the idea, he said, as well as Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate.

Mr Rosenthal said the town receives many voice-mail messages, many about matters that are not of public interest. Transcribing them and determining which messages should be kept would be a cost factor of every department, he noted. He questioned how the transcription would be done, by one person going from department to department or by each department.

“Who determines the messages to retain, and how long they are retained?” he questioned.

He said the voice-mail issue is one of jurisdiction, and he feels the FOIC is overstepping its authority. “I don’t believe the FOIC has jurisdiction,” he said, noting authority for instituting such a requirement and how it would be administered would fall under the jurisdiction of the Public Records Administrator.

The alternative would be not to do voice mail, he said, but that would inconvenience members of the public who are unable to call town departments during normal business hours.

Mr Rosenthal said he supports the FOI act. No public official should be antidisclosure, he said. “All should be for strong ethical behavior and disclosure to the public.”

Mr Rosenthal said he is not questioning the intentions of the FOIC, but is not sure the commission considered the impact and ramifications of the opinion.

Mr Rosenthal said if the proposed requirement was suggested by the FOIC as the result of ethics violation issues facing the state, only honest people would be burdened by it.

Unethical people would not be impacted, he noted, because their voice mails, if they reflected something unethical, would be erased.