Public records laws may undergo a restructuring in Wyoming

CHEYENNE — In the recent legislative session, lawmakers weighed options to reduce response timelines for public records requests and increase transparency. Ultimately, the proposed legislation failed after some lawmakers felt the process was rushed and local government officials pushed back with capacity concerns.

On Thursday, lawmakers met to begin more thorough discussions to address the issue as Wyoming governments continue to be flooded with data mining records requests and some residents call for more transparency.

The Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee discussed a slate of changes, including the creation of a two-tiered request system and a significant restructuring of the state’s Public Records Ombudsman office.

A strained system

Wyoming’s Public Records Ombudsman Darlena Potter, who serves as a mediator between citizens and government agencies, delivered an assessment of the current landscape.

Potter said she is currently juggling 49 active cases alone while attempting to provide statewide training.

“I’m feeling miserable, if I’m honest right now, because I’m just so overloaded, in spite of my best efforts,” Potter told the committee. She said that the office needs “more teeth” and resources, specifically suggesting the creation of an Open Meetings Ombudsman to overlap with records duties.

Boulder resident Veronica Larvie said she worked for three decades with the U.S. Department of the Interior and has experience with open records on the local, state, national and international levels. She said she thinks there are some essential legislative fixes, and she thinks there are some special election district officials who don’t think they are subject to the public records laws.

She described a months-long struggle to obtain basic documents from a local special election board and concerns with how some local boards handle business behind closed doors.

“Those documents are incomplete. They don’t include any of the essential documents related to their business because they don’t think they’re subject to the open meetings laws,” she said of some documents she received.

Larvie called the board’s tactics “monkey business” and said she has already spent $10,000 in legal fees with no hope of recovery under current law. She said Potter has done a great job in her work, but noted that she has no authority to refer a matter like this to a court system.

Other models

A major concern throughout the discussion was the impact of commercial out-of-state data miners — companies that request voluminous records to sell for profit — on small Wyoming towns and volunteer-run special districts.

Parker Jackson, representing the Goldwater Institute, urged the committee to look to Arizona’s statutes as a solution. Arizona differentiates between commercial and non-commercial requests, allowing agencies to charge for staff time and the “commercial value” of the data for for-profit entities, while keeping records free or low-cost for citizens and the media.

“We shouldn’t be conditioning public access to information on somebody’s ability to pay $350-an-hour attorney fees for records review,” Jackson said, arguing transparency should be a “routine requirement,” rather than a revenue-raising mechanism.

Sarah Squires, managing editor of the Lander Journal and Riverton Ranger, shared a success story from the Midwest, where a county eliminated fees for requests consisting of fewer than 100 pages. This move, she said, organically motivated staff to put more records online to avoid processing requests.

“I think that any effort toward encouraging local governments to add more records online really has to go hand in hand with efforts at removing these barriers for citizens and fees,” Squires said.

Lawmakers’ action

After hours of testimony from county clerks, special district representatives and law enforcement, many of whom expressed concern that a proposed 10-day response deadline would be undoable during election cycles, the committee began carving up the legislation.

The committee passed a series of motions to amend a draft bill that would fundamentally change the Wyoming Public Records Act:

• Two-tiered system: The committee moved to adopt the Arizona model, creating separate tracks for residential and commercial requests.
• Revised deadlines: Under the new proposal, agencies would have to acknowledge a request within three business days. For residents, the records must be produced within 10 business days, while commercial entities could face a 30-day wait.
• Mandatory fee waivers: The ombudsman would be granted the authority to mandate fee waivers in specific cases.
• Nuisance requests: The ombudsman could rule that a request is a “nuisance,” exempting the entity from fulfilling it.
• Redaction of contracts: Lawmakers voted to ensure that executed government contracts are public records and cannot be broadly redacted, addressing concerns about taxpayer money going to private vendors without oversight.

Restructuring the ombudsman

Another decision was to potentially pull the ombudsman’s office out from under the governor’s direct control.

Betsy Anderson, Gov. Mark Gordon’s deputy chief of staff, testified on the importance of the position’s independence. She recalled a 2019 interview in which a candidate for ombudsman told the governor they would change a decision if he told them to.

“For me, (that was) the wrong answer. That’s not what we want to hear. We want an independent ombudsman,” Anderson said.

Following a suggestion by Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, the committee voted to create a separate bill to house the ombudsman within the State Auditor’s Office. The office would be overseen by a three-member panel consisting of the governor, the secretary of state and the state auditor, with the ombudsman serving a six-year term.

“The auditor’s department has shown now a track record of transparency improvement,” Rep. Ann Lucas, R-Cheyenne, noted, referring to the success of Auditor Kristi Racines’ WyOpen.com financial portal, which put Wyoming’s checkbook online, improving state transparency and government accountability and resolving lawsuits.

The committee will return to these bill drafts at its next meeting in September to continue work on the language before the 2027 legislative session.

This story was published on May 22, 2026.