Jan 30, 2008 By Kori Walter For The 2 min read

HARRISBURG – The state Senate needs at least one more day to fine tune a proposal for overhauling the state’s open records law. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, a Delaware County Republican, said the measure requires a technical change before going to the full Senate for a vote.

The open records law governs which documents governments at all levels must make available to the public in Pennsylvania.

Good-government advocates and newspapers have been pressing lawmakers for years to strengthen the law, which currently requires anyone seeking government documents to prove that the information is public.

The proposal the Senate is working on would presume that most government records are public documents. And government officials would have to prove that documents are not public when denying requests for information.

House and Senate leaders have been negotiating for more than a month to settle differences between open records proposals from each chamber.

Some of the major changes in the latest version of the bill would:

??Keep dates of births on court documents and other records public.

? Allow courts to decide if 9-1-1 recordings or transcripts should be public.

? Require lawmakers to make public correspondence with a registered lobbyist.

? Create an Office of Open Records housed within the state Department of Community and Economic Develop with a director appointed by the governor to a six-year term.

? Make effective date Dec. 31.