SB 272: The California Public Records Act: local agencies: inventory.

Existing law, the California Public Records Act, requires state and local agencies to make their records available for public inspection, unless an exemption from disclosure applies. The act declares that access to information concerning the conduct of the peoples business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state.

This bill would require each local agency, except a local educational agency, in implementing the California Public Records Act, to create a catalog of enterprise systems, as defined, to make the catalog publicly available upon request in the office of the person or officer designated by the agencys legislative body, and to post the catalog on the local agencys Internet Web site. The bill would require the catalog to disclose a list of the enterprise systems utilized by the agency, and, among other things, the current system vendor and product, unless, on the facts of the particular case, the public interest served by not disclosing that information clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure, in which case the local agency may instead provide a system name, brief title, or identifier of the system. Because the bill would require local agencies to perform additional duties, it would impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires local agencies, for the purpose of ensuring public access to the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies, to comply with a statutory enactment that amends or enacts laws relating to public records or open meetings and contains findings demonstrating that the enactment furthers this purpose.

This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.

Existing constitutional provisions require a statute that limits the right of public access to meetings or writings of public officials to be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest to be protected by that limitation and the need to protect that interest.

This bill would declare that it includes limitations on access, that the interest to be protected is the security of enterprise systems in public agencies, and that the need to protect that interest is that enterprise systems can contain information that, if released to the public, could result in negative consequences.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.