How transparent are local, state governments?

But open-government advocates say there are transparency concerns surrounding some aspects of state politics.

Through South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act, citizens can attend open meetings and acquire records from public bodies.

FOIA defines a public body as any “agency supported in whole or in part by public funds.” The most recognizable entities include school boards, councils and commissions.

“Too often, people do not know what is required of FOIA,” South Carolina Press Association Attorney Taylor Smith IV said.

According to Wright, “Orangeburg has done very well with adhering to FOIA and trying to be transparent.”

But that is not always the case in South Carolina.

How can the state be more transparent?

“We have pretty great transparency laws in South Carolina, but one of the biggest exceptions is ‘dark money,’” South Carolina government watchdog John Crangle said.

He describes dark money as “independent expenditures made by special interest groups to campaigns.”

“These dark money groups can operate in secrecy and the public doesn’t know who they are, how much they’re spending or what they’re doing,” he said.

According to Crangle, the concern is that some lawmakers can receive money from special interest groups and make favorable decisions in return.

“Some people may say legislators are not required to give enough information about where they’re getting their money,” he said.

Crangle says another major issue is the abuse of executive sessions. Public bodies are supposed to use executive sessions to discuss sensitive matters and receive legal advice.

He said some executive sessions are being used “to avoid having public meetings.”

“I think that sometimes they have executive sessions and discuss matters that should be discussed openly,” Crangle said.

Smith wonders “if we’re backsliding” due to the South Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling in a 2018 case. In DomainsNewMedia.com LLC vs. Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, the S.C. Supreme Court decided that the chamber did not have to disclose its records under FOIA, even though the chamber received public funds to support tourism.

Smith says the ruling was alarming because “entities that spend tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money every year don’t have that transparency.”

“If we don’t have that access to what the officials are doing on our behalf, then we become less informed,” he said.

South Carolina’s FOIA history

FOIA was established in 1978 to give citizens access to public officials’ activities. FOIA requires public bodies to have a certain degree of transparency and disclose information to the public.

Years later, in the 1990s, legislators in the South Carolina General Assembly were caught in a political scandal. The FBI sting “Operation Lost Trust” uncovered drug use, bribery and extortion within the public body. As a result, 17 members of the General Assembly were convicted.

The findings resulted in the Ethics Reform Act of 1991 and a “much greater understanding of what it (FOIA) requires in government,” Smith said.

But he says the “law hasn’t changed a lot regarding FOIA.”

One notable change was a 2015 amendment that required public bodies to have agendas for their meetings.

Smith said the amendment was a “positive thing for transparency” and ensured that the public has “knowledge about what their government is going to cover.”

Several other amendments to the SCFOIA were approved in 2017:

• If a deposit is required for copying records, the fee cannot exceed 25% of the total cost.
• When a FOIA request is made, a response must be given within 10 days.
• If a public body does not have an electronic version of a requested record, it is not required to create one.

Furthermore, state-level court records are available to the public online. Updated court dockets, an archive for oral arguments and live-streamed oral arguments are accessible online.

Is Orangeburg in compliance?

Orangeburg County School District

The meeting dates, agendas and minutes for the OCSD are on the district’s website and are easy to locate. The fee schedule for copying the district’s public records is not easily findable on the website.

Orangeburg City Council and Planning Commission

City of Orangeburg Public Information Officer Jennifer Van Cleave ensures that the city council and planning commission strive to be “as transparent as we can be.”

“We work for the taxpayers and it’s important for them to be knowledgeable about what city employees and city council is doing,” she said.

Meetings of city council and the planning commission are both listed on the same calendar. Although meeting dates and agendas are accessible on the city’s website, the minutes from city council’s June 20 meeting are not yet online.

“We may be off a little bit, but typically that’s not normal for us. Clerk to council tries to get them done as soon as she can. There’s a pretty fast turnaround and usually within a week, we have those ready,” Van Cleave said.

Crangle says minutes and agendas are typically not a problem in South Carolina.

In Crangle’s experience, public bodies “try to post their minutes in five to six days.”

But Section 30-4-90 (b) of FOIA does not provide a timeline for posting minutes. The law states: “The minutes shall be public records and shall be available within a reasonable time after the meeting.”

Learn more at https://scpress.org/foia-citizens-guide/