HB 2493 by Capriglione: Increased Transparency for Information Requests

HB 2493 seeks to make it clear that if government information is maintained in a searchable or sortable electronic spreadsheet, it must be provided in that format if sought by the requestor and that data dictionaries or other information indicating the type of data held in a particular database field are part of the public record. Moreover, HB 2493 seeks to prohibit a governmental entity from refusing to release electronic information on the grounds that exporting or redacting excepted information will require filtering the data with software regularly used by that entity. HB 2493 seeks to provide additional transparency to taxpayers. For this reason, TFR supports HB 2493.