Displaying items by tag: public records

ELON — North Carolina State Treasurer Dale R. Folwell, CPA, today accepted the N.C. Open Government Coalition’s Government Award that recognizes individuals as well as agencies within government that have provided outstanding access to public information.

For decades North Carolina has ranked near the bottom of all states in the country when it comes to the public’s right to know what went wrong when a government employee is transferred, demoted, or terminated for disciplinary reasons.

The North Carolina General Assembly remains poised to make open government history next week when lawmakers return to Raleigh for the last time in 2021. It has been a while since our legislature has made any meaningful improvement to North Carolinians’ right to know about government action and performance through access to state and local government records and meetings. Now’s their chance.

When the 2021 session of the General Assembly began, passage of legislation to advance public access to records of disciplinary actions taken by those employed by taxpayers in state and local government seemed like a longshot. Long a priority of North Carolina newspapers on behalf of the state’s citizens, improved access to public employee personnel records had been more aspirational than reality-based.

RALEIGH — A bill to provide more transparency to the public regarding performance and disciplinary records of government employees moved one step closer to becoming law Monday evening as House Bill 64, Government Transparency Act of 2021, passed its third reading in the N.C. Senate. If enacted as law, the new requirements would apply to state employees and workers in local school districts, counties, cities, and colleges and universities.

Who says North Carolina’s state employees and schoolteachers are against transparency?

RALEIGH — A bill that would open disciplinary records of government employees is crawling through the Senate, and employee unions and Democrats are determined to kill it.

With no meaningful state law giving North Carolinians the right to see disciplinary records of those they employ in state and local government jobs, how will we ever know? 

RALEIGH — A growing number of senators are signing on to a bill that would make more information available to the public on government employee performance.

Many newspapers recently wrapped up coverage of Sunshine Week, a time set aside to promote government accountability through public records and public meetings.