Nevada Press Association The best in Nevada journalism since 1924
After a couple of busy weeks, let me catch up on bills that were heard in committees of the Nevada Legislature Feb. 16-25.
[Here are Week 1 and Week 2 recaps.]AB113 — Changes the provisions for when a juvenile’s court records may be sealed. It doesn’t change the public’s access to records, just the age and period at which a juvenile may request the sealing. We presented no testimony.
AB17 — Creates a nonprofit entity of the state in order to receive federal economic development funds. We had some concerns in the last section about the wording of confidentiality provisions, which could be construed broadly and probably isn’t necessary. It’s on the record that only proprietary information and trade secrets submitted by a company would be kept confidential — and those would remain confidential in perpetuity, according to an amendment. The way the bill originally was worded, it actually would have made all information public when a contract was awarded.
SB83 — From the Division of Internal Audits, this bill would make confidential all the information called into the division’s fraud and abuse hotline. Committee members questioned the same thing we did — you mean all information? Wouldn’t this be problematic and open the reporting process itself to possible abuse?
The division’s representative said they didn’t really mean all information; it was meant only to protect the identity of the caller. The committee members seemed fine with that, but we argued that whistleblower statutes already protect people from harassment or retaliation for reporting fraud, waste and abuse in state government.
There’s no reason to make confidentiality automatic. In fact, some people may well want people to know they were the ones who reported the fraud or waste. If someone had a legitimate reason for seeking confidentiality, they should at least ask for it and give a reason.
AB40 — The Gaming Control Board’s bill, keeping confidential its investigations until a complaint is filed — which we had testified on a couple of weeks ago — was tightened up to specific statutes dealing with investigations. It was approved by the committee and sent to the Assembly Floor for a vote.
SB72 — A bill from Information Technology, part of it would delete an entire section that pertains to confidential Homeland Security documents. Apparently this language is covered elsewhere in statute, but it wasn’t very clearly explained. We ended up not testifying.
SB70 — The Attorney General’s Open Meeting Law bill, it makes some clarifications regarding quorums and proxies — nothing of particular concern. It also lists OML exemptions, similar to the way NRS239 now lists open-records exemptions, and former legislator Skip Daly presented some concerns about a possible misreading of the language.
Our objection is to the last section, which makes confidential all information obtained by the AG’s Office during its investigation of an OML complaint. We don’t think that section is necessary, because everything it gets is already public record. Unlike regulatory boards like the Gaming Control Board, which delve into private companies, the AG would be investigating only public boards.