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Saturday, November 18, 2006

Ind. Gov't. - More on: Senate's health care perks to change somewhat; retaining the General Assembly's video archives

Following up on new Senate Pro Tem David Long's announcement this week (see ILB entry here) that the Senate's generous health care perk will be pared somewhat, the Indianapolis Star opines today on other "areas ripe for reform":

Long plans to sign an administrative order eliminating senators' heavily subsidized health-care perk. * * *

Eliminating the perk will be a sound start for the new leader, a Republican from Fort Wayne. But Long will have ample opportunity in coming months to go farther in transforming a legislative chamber that's often been impervious to change.

Long should, for example, press to reduce legislators' pension benefits. Taxpayers now put in $4 for every $1 contributed by lawmakers to their retirement plan. Like the health-care perk, it's compensation that greatly exceeds the benefits other state employees and most Hoosiers enjoy.
The public needs to be invited into the inner workings of the Senate. Long should ensure that Hoosiers have access to important public information by ordering transcripts to be kept from Senate floor action and key committee hearings. Senators also need to join their House colleagues in providing Internet video casting of sessions.

An ILB correction to the Star's editorial: The Senate already does provide simultaneous internet videocasting of its daily sessions. But it does not archive these videocasts (as the House currently does) so that they may be viewed later in the day or later in the session. And neither House retains these videocasts beyond the term of the session, as the ILB pointed out on Nov. 8th in this lengthy entry titled "Suggestions for the new legislative leadership - Part I: The Video Archives," which concluded with these "Recommendations to the Indiana General Assembly" concerning the video archives:
First, both Houses should stream their session days live, plus archive the videos, permanently. Currently the House archives during the session, but does not retain the videos once the next session starts. The Senate doesn't even go that far -- you can only watch the Senate session online as it happens; nothing is preserved.

Second, all committee meetings should be streamed live, plus archived. Right now, the public cannot even get a seat in a committtee hearing that allows them to see and hear what is going on.

Third, "archived" means make permanently available online. Look again at Ohio - you can watch Ohio proceedings online live or archived, going back through 1997, plus order DVD or VHS videos. Their plan is soon to make video-podcasts downloadable also.

Fourth, the videocasts of the House and Senate daily sessions should be indexed (eg SB #238 - Third Reading), as in Ohio, allowing the viewer to go immediately to the desired position. (It might be possible to do this in conjunction with the Journals.) In fact, the entire Ohio setup should be studied, as they seem to be light years ahread of Indiana, tech-wise!

Fifth, the process - archiving the videos, access, prohibitions against editing out portions - should be detailed in statute or in the joint rules.

The ILB suggestions concluded:
In 1851 the debates and journals of the Indiana Constitutional Convention were carefully and laboriously preserved for the ages. We continue to use and reference them today. Recording and preserving today's sessions of the General Assembly is a very simple thing. But we are not doing it very well.
The ILB communicated with the Public Access Counselor and the Indiana Commission on Public Records about whether the House video archives are "public records" that cannot be summarily destroyed at the end of each session. It turns out that the applicable law is IC 5-15-5.1. the law creating the Indiana Commission on Public Records.

I learned that if the videos are the types of records that fall within a "record" under IC 5-15-5.1-1 (and the law does explicitly cover both "photographic or chemically based media" and "magnetic or machine readable media"), then they must be maintained for the prescribed period of time and may only be destroyed in accordance with the records retention schedule.

Or at least, that would be the case if the public records law applied to the General Assembly. However, as section 3 provides:

There is created the commission on public records to administer this chapter for the administrative and executive branches of state government. The commission shall adopt a seal which shall be the seal of the state of Indiana. The commission shall offer its services to the legislative and judicial branches of state government.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 18, 2006 08:39 AM
Posted to Indiana Government | Indiana Law | Legislative Benefits