PROVIDENCE -- They spend millions, employ hundreds, and handle some of the most basic of public functions, but many Rhode Island agencies fail to comply with the most basic of public access laws, according to a new Brown University study.
The study analyzed how well quasi-public agencies comply with parts of the Open Meetings Law, concluding, among other things, that there is "widespread noncompliance and tardiness in filing minutes with the secretary of state."
Some agencies are questioning those findings, saying that they do file minutes of their meetings with the secretary of state.
The study acknowledges that the findings may reflect problems with the way records are kept at the secretary of state's office -- and not problems with the agencies.
But the result is the same: Members of the public can't get their hands on information that they should have, under law. And that information is crucial, researchers said, because quasi-public agencies usually receive a lot less scrutiny than the executive branch departments or the General Assembly.
"The public should care because these agencies are spending millions of their tax dollars, and they have to know what's going on," said Darrell M. West, director of Brown's Taubman Center for Public Policy. "The quasis are where the real money is in Rhode Island government."
Quasi-public agencies are entities set up like private corporations to perform governmental functions -- such as running the buses and operating the state landfill.
State law contains no clear definition of what a quasi-public agency is, and there is no agreement on how many such agencies are in Rhode Island. But the study chose to focus on 23 agencies included in the governor's 2004 budget.
According to the findings, the agencies often failed to meet one of the simplest requirements of the Open Meetings Law -- that they submit the minutes of all open meetings to the secretary of state. The study found that little more than one-third submitted all their 2002 meeting minutes, and one-quarter submitted no minutes at all that year.
Even when they did file minutes, agencies often failed to get them to the secretary of state within 35 days of the meeting, as required by law. The study found that no agency submitted all its 2002 minutes on time.
"The degree of tardiness was staggering in some cases, with organizations sending in minutes over 200 days late and others more than a year," the report stated.
The study also examined whether quasi-public boards follow the law when they decide to meet behind closed doors. The conclusion: Most were good about citing the statute that allows closed meetings under certain circumstances, but they did a poor job of specifying "the nature of the business to be discussed," as required by law.
The 25-page report placed the findings in the context of past abuses by quasi-public agencies and an upcoming referendum that would change how the agencies are monitored.
"Credit-card abuses, inappropriate personnel practices and general misuse of funds have brought some of Rhode Island's quasi-public agencies under public scrutiny in recent years," the report stated. "The looming 2004 vote on separation of powers brings these organizations into the limelight again."
In November 2004, voters will decide on a constitutional amendment that would, in part, remove legislators and their associates from the boards of quasi-public agencies. If the amendment passes, the state will have to come up with a new way of overseeing the agencies. "Given a history of scandal behind quasi-publics, monitoring their behavior will be paramount," the report stated.
According to the study, six organizations did not have any meeting minutes on file with the secretary of state for 2002, and five of those agencies "never" submitted minutes -- including the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation.
The report called the absence of minutes from RIHMFC "particularly perplexing," saying, "Not only has this organization been in existence since 1973, it is infamous for a 1980s scandal that resulted in the conviction and jailing of the organization's executive director."
RIHMFC spokesman Chris Barnett said, "We were surprised at the critical tone [the report] took -- the advocacy tone, in what is held out as objective, arm's-length research."
Barnett also took issue with the report's content. RIHMFC regularly submitted minutes to the secretary of state prior to 2000, he said, questioning how the study concluded that five agencies "never" submitted minutes.
Since 2000, RIHMFC has been sending its meeting minutes to a state office at 40 Fountain St., Barnett said. "We believe we were told by someone at the secretary of state's office to send minutes there," he said. He said he did not know who at the secretary of state's office had made that statement.
In any case, rather than going to the secretary of state's office, the minutes ended up going to Catherine Avila, deputy treasurer for administration in Gen. Treas. Paul J. Tavares's office. Avila didn't think it was unusual to be getting the minutes because she receives a lot of correspondence and Tavares is on the RIHMFC board, said chief of staff George Carvalho.
After the report came out, RIHMFC brought 32 months' worth of meeting minutes to the secretary of state's office, and Barnett said the agency will file its minutes there from now on. "We always believed we were complying with the letter and spirit of the law," he said. "And we will continue complying."
Ross E. Cheit, associate professor of political science in the Taubman Center for Public Policy, supervised the project and edited the report. Morriah Horani, a 2002 Brown graduate, conducted the research.
Cheit said the conclusion that RIHMFC and four other agencies had "never" filed minutes was based on statements from the secretary of state's office. He said RIHMFC might not like being reminded of a past scandal, but he defended the report's tone, saying, "We just reported what we found."
The 25-page report acknowledged "the possibility of errors," citing the way records are stored and retrieved at the secretary of state's office.
Employees pull out information from storage, so the public can't access the files directly, and some files that were provided during the study were missing when requested again, the report stated. The study also turned up duplicated and mislabeled files, so the report stated, "We cannot claim to have a complete record of what exists at the secretary of state's office."
However, the report stated, "we can say that our results reflect what a public citizen making a similar request is likely to receive."
Secretary of State Matt Brown said the record-access problems highlight the need to file documents via computer rather than on paper. He pushed for a new law, which takes effect in July 2004, requiring that meeting notices and minutes be filed electronically with his office.
Brown praised the study, saying the findings underscore the importance of meeting notices and minutes. "[The agencies] should just do what they are supposed to do," he said. "There is a reason these laws are in place -- the public has a right to know what's going on."
The report said the new electronic filing requirement "should make it much easier for people to access information." But it's not clear how much compliance will improve, the report said, unless the secretary of state takes on a greater role in ensuring compliance with the Open Meetings Law.
Brown offered no opinion about taking on compliance duties, saying he wants to see what other states are doing.
The report found wide variation in the form and content of the minutes that agencies do file. While some organizations submitted less than a page of information, the Narragansett Bay Commission's monthly minutes reached up to 48 pages.
The report also found wide variation in whether agencies filed their minutes within 35 days. The Rhode Island Lottery Commission was the most punctual agency, making the deadline 78 percent of the time.
By contrast, the report said, minutes for the Rhode Island Refunding Bond Authority's only 2002 meeting came in 342 days late.
And, according to the report, 75 percent of the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority's minutes were more than 141 days late. The report said the Convention Center Authority filed minutes for just four of its 2002 meetings, although it added this caveat: "We could not rule out the possibility that the minutes were misfiled at the secretary of state's [office]."
Executive Director James P. McCarvill said that each month the Convention Center Authority board approves the prior month's minutes and forwards them to the secretary of state, so he said, he was surprised by the report. "That may be what they found," he said. "But what we do is at odds with that."
He said, "We try very hard to comply with the Open Meetings Act and to do things the way they should be done."
From now on, the Convention Center Authority will send its minutes to the secretary of state with return receipt requested, McCarvill said. "But it will become moot next year," he said, noting the electronic filing requirement.
(Earlier this year, the Convention Center Authority lost a seven-year legal battle with The Providence Journal over the release of records regarding its financial dealings with clients who book events at the Convention Center and The Westin Providence hotel.)
Another part of the study found that quasi-public agencies cited the law properly 91 percent of the time when going into closed sessions. The law allows closed sessions for nine reasons, such as discussing pending litigation.
But the report said, "We were concerned about over-citation of [the law's] subsections, primarily by the directors of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation."
In 10 of 11 meetings, the EDC board went into closed session citing five of the permitted reasons: personnel, litigation, buying or leasing of public land, location of prospective businesses and investment of public funds.
"Although it seems unlikely that so many subjects were discussed in executive session, we do not have any proof that they were incorrect in citing this many subsections of the law," the report stated. "But this issue highlights the importance of the piece of information that is supposed to accompany citation of a subsection: a statement of the nature of business to be discussed."
EDC minutes lacked such statements, the report said.
Michael E. McMahon became state economic development director at the beginning of 2003, so he was not in charge during the study period of 2002. He said the EDC board used to go into closed session on a regular basis, but "we very rarely go into closed session now." Regarding public access laws, he said, "We will do better. We will be the best."
The report found that only the Rhode Island Clean Water Finance Agency and the Capital Center Commission provided "a true statement of the nature of discussion to be had in executive session before the session commenced." And the Rhode Island Airport Corporation routinely submitted minutes of its closed sessions, including tallies of votes taken in those sessions.
"The Airport Corporation is doing an excellent job," Cheit said. "You can see what's possible. It's not that this is impossible."
