This is a week when special emphasis is placed on the obligation government has to do public business in public. Tthe state auditor keeps turing up instances where government violates the state open meetings and open records laws.
When staff of the state auditor’s office looks into operations of public govenrmental agencies and public govenrmental bodies, they look at whether they obey the law that says public business cannot be done in secret. There are limited exceptions to the law.
But auditor Tom Schweich’s staff has found numerous violations of the law. About one in five audits done in the last two years has reported violations of the state Sunshine Law. …
Schweich says his staff has found sunshine law violatlions in about one-fifth of the audits done in the last two years. He says he believes many groups when they claim ignorance of the law.
Attorney General Chris Koster says his office got more than 130hundred sunshine law-related compalints last year. He says he’s alreayd contacted 14 of the public bodies listen in Schweich’s report and provided them with information about the law.