Senator urges extension of public records law to governor and legislature; bills to standardize records governance advanced

Boston — Senator Becca Rausch told the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight the Commonwealth should bring the governor’s office and the Legislature under the state public‑records law and adopt an information‑governance bill to reduce costs and delays in records searches.

“Massachusetts is the only state in the entire nation in which the legislature and the governor are both exempt from the public records law,” Rausch said. Her bill, S.2210, would extend the public‑records law to those offices while preserving standard confidentiality exceptions for personal identifying information, deliberative materials and investigatory records.

Rausch also described S.2207, an information governance bill that would set naming conventions, retention schedules, privacy determinations and disposal protocols for digital and physical records. She and committee members cited a high‑profile 2018 public‑records fee estimate — $245,425 — as an example of how poor records‑management systems can render technically public records effectively inaccessible.

Rausch said a modernized governance framework would reduce waste, improve public access and save taxpayer dollars by avoiding excessive outside storage and expensive, ad hoc retrieval operations. Committee members asked for additional detail on scope and implementation; Rausch said the bills had been reported favorably in prior sessions and urged another favorable report.

Ending — The committee took testimony and asked clarifying questions; no vote or committee action was recorded during the hearing.