IPRA overhaul bill would add fees, more exemptions for public records

Yahoo

12-03-2025

During a legislative session heavily focused on public safety, a bill that would limit the public's access to police records as part of a major overhaul of state open records law is set to be considered.
House Bill 497, or "Inspection of Public Record Act Changes" sponsored by Rep. Cathrynn Brown, R-Carlsbad, would also add fees to many records requests, extend the timelines agencies have to respond and make it more difficult for requesters to seek damages for violations of the law, among other changes.
The bill was introduced Feb. 20 and is scheduled for its first hearing Wednesday morning in the House Government, Election and Indian Affairs Committee.
In a statement, Brown wrote the goal of the bill is to set "clear definitions to ensure that IPRA processes are standardized across our state.
"The bill also provides records custodians with adequate time to properly fulfill requests," she wrote. "Other goals are to reduce abuse of public records request processes and ensure government resources are used efficiently, all the while allowing public access to non-exempt records."
House Bill 497
The legislation was met with concern from others, however, who said it could significantly curtail the public's access to records.
"The bill completely damages transparency but it also will badly affect ordinary citizens," who file the majority of open records requests, New Mexico Foundation for Open Government Executive Director Christine Barber said in a Tuesday interview.
What would it do?
The bill proposes a raft of changes to IPRA's structure along with significantly expanding what can be made exempt from public records.
New exemptions would include:
* Records about cybersecurity information or critical infrastructure.
* Public entities' "disaster mitigation, preparation, response, vulnerability or recovery" plans.
* Records submitted by bidders on a public contract relating to the financial stability of a bidder, including tax returns and bank statements.
* The work schedules of law enforcement employees and employees of correctional facilities.
* The "reports, notes and evidence generated by internal investigations of personnel or students."
* Police body-worn camera footage taken in a private place, unless the recording is of an alleged crime or of an encounter between an officer and a citizen where the person is killed or injured, where an officer discharges their weapon or something that is the subject of an ongoing legal proceeding.
Kenneth Stalter, an attorney who has represented a number of clients in public records lawsuits, said he thought additional exemptions for cybersecurity made sense but was concerned about the impact of limiting access to police body camera footage. He said it didn't make sense to exempt footage only if it was the subject of a lawsuit, because in many cases having access to evidence is what determines whether someone is able to go forward with a suit in the first place.
"This whole bill is treating symptoms rather than the disease," Stalter said, which he described as shoddy record keeping at some agencies and a lack of sufficient staff to meet demand.
In an email, ACLU New Mexico Interim Executive Director Leon Howard also expressed concerns with the restrictions on police body camera footage, citing the recent scandal over drunken-driving cases in Albuquerque which has implicated more than a dozen officers as an example of the need for oversight.
"By restricting access to law enforcement records, this bill would effectively conceal police misconduct, excessive use of force, and other abuses from public scrutiny, making it harder for communities to hold law enforcement accountable," he wrote.
The bill would also extend many IPRA timelines, adding in language stating law enforcement agencies have 45 days from becoming aware of a crime to having to respond to any related records requests and extending the timeline for when agencies need to respond to requests for "current records" from 15 to 21 days.
Agencies can already extend the timeline if a request is considered "broad and burdensome," something Brown's bill defines as any record that takes longer than three hours to produce.
Along with taking more time to produce those records, agencies could now charge $30 an hour for any work past three hours. It would remove language stating records custodians may not charge a fee for the cost of determining whether a given record is subject to disclosure and states records custodians may decline to allow someone to inspect a record if they have already inspected it previously.
Who can request is also limited: The bill bars prisoners from being able to submit records requests by stating the definition of "person" in the law "does not include an individual incarcerated in a correctional facility."
It also states records custodians are not required to respond to anonymous or pseudonymous requests, which Barber said could pose a risk to victims of domestic violence, human trafficking or other crimes attempting to obtain police records for legal purposes.
The bill would also make it more challenging for people to successfully seek redress for violations of open records law by requiring a requestor to provide written notice to a public body of any alleged violation of IPRA, after which the public body has 21 days to respond and 21 more days to provide the records. Only afterward would the public body be subject to damages, with the fines being changed from up to $100 per day to per "business day."
The bill states a court may award damages "only in cases where the public body did not act in good faith or failed to provide a reasonable denial," something Stalter said appears designed to keep people from being able to attract legal counsel.
"You don't know when a client comes in the door whether a public body acted in good faith or not," he said.
Other IPRA bills
This is the third bill this session seeking to overhaul the Inspection of Public Records Act. The other two have stalled and, with just 11 days left in the session, it's unclear how much traction Brown's will be able to garner.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Kathleen Cates, D-Rio Rancho, would similarly have made sweeping changes to IPRA but was withdrawn after it became the subject of widespread criticism. Cates said she had introduced the bill to start a discussion.
Another bill, House Bill 283, "Law Enforcement Record Changes," sponsored by Reps. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, and Linda Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, was referred out of the House Government, Elections & Indian Affairs on Feb. 24 with no recommendation. No further action has been taken since.
A fiscal impact report attached to the bill noted it would likely decrease state employee workload by reducing the volume of IPRA requests, citing earlier analysis of Cates' bill.
"If House Bill 497 were to have a similar chilling effect on records requests, the savings across all state agencies would be significant," the report said. "However, because the savings would be spread out over dozens of agencies, the reduction in IPRA requests is unlikely to result in a reduction in positions or spending in state agencies."
Barber said she sympathizes with records custodians who are overwhelmed with requests, but said there are other ways agencies can streamline their records process, such as the city of Santa Fe's recent decision to automatically publish all of its accident reports online after redacting sensitive information.
"There [are] other ways to go about this that do not include everybody having to give up their rights, which is basically what this [bill] is," she said.