ACCESSING STATE RECORDS WASN'T EASY

Getting hold of Missouri bingo records can be a difficult task.

It took two months for the Southeast Missourian to obtain from the state the 1997 quarterly financial reports on bingo operations run by nine organizations in Cape Girardeau County.

The Southeast Missourian first asked for the records from the Missouri Gaming Commission's Bingo Division in late February.

Initially, the division's supervisor, Ron Pleus, questioned if such reports were open records.

But the agency in Jefferson City later concluded that such reports could be released.

The newspaper originally had requested financial records on the nearly 100 bingo organizations in Southeast Missouri.

But the newspaper scaled back its request to just the Cape Girardeau County organizations after Pleus disclosed that duplicating and research costs associated with finding the records could cost thousands of dollars.

Agency officials said it would cost $140 or 50 cents a page just to provide the Missourian with the quarterly reports for the nine bingo organizations in Cape Girardeau County.

But at the urging of the newspaper, state Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Giardeau, asked for copies of the financial reports on the Cape Girardeau County bingo operations.

The agency provided the copies to Kinder at no charge in late April.

But the acting director of the Gaming Commission, C.E. Fisher, noted in an April 21 letter to Kinder that it would have charged the newspaper to provide the identical records.

Kinder said the $140 charge would have been excessive.

"I don't think these things should be unduly burdensome to the news media, which is just supplying information to the public," he said.

Kinder is assistant to the president for Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian.

Both the Missouri Senate and the House passed bills this year to strengthen Missouri's open meetings and records law.

Kinder said the legislation stipulates that state agencies can't charge more than the actual cost of searching for and copying documents.

It also states that documents may be furnished without charge or at a reduced charge when the public governmental body determines that such action is in the public's interest.

But the Missouri Press Association's lawyer, Jean Maneke, said the legislation probably will do little to make documents more accessible to the press or the public.

"If you want state records on something, you could be looking at thousands of dollars," she said.

Records aren't really open if the cost of obtaining them is prohibitive, Maneke said.