House bill requires training on open meetings laws, raises fines for violations
by Robin Opsahl, Iowa Capital Dispatch
February 22, 2024
A bill raising fines for violating open meetings or records laws and requiring education for elected and appointed officials was approved in the Iowa House Thursday with bipartisan support.
House File 2539 passed 92-2, with Reps. Phil Thompson and Brian Lohse voting against the measure. The bill increases penalties for people who participated in a violation of open meetings law from fines between $100 and $500 to fines between $500 and $2,500.
Knowingly violating Iowa open meetings laws could be fined between $5,000 and $12,500 under the bill, an increase from a range between $1,000 and $2,500.
The bill also requires Iowa elected officials go through mandatory training, provided through the Iowa Public Information Board, on the state’s public records and open meeting laws.
Rep. Gary Mohr, R-Bettendorf, said he introduced the bill in the wake of open meetings and records law violations in Davenport. Following the collapse of a six-story apartment building in May 2023 that resulted in three deaths, the Davenport city government was “very reluctant” or refused to provide information on inspections of the building, Mohr said.
In January, a lawsuit was filed alleging the city of Davenport and former city attorney Tom Warner had broken open meetings laws by reaching settlements with three city employees without the city council’s approval. The Davenport city council ratified the settlement agreements in December after a closed session.
“I don’t know if those two situations were related or not,” Mohr said. “Because so many questions were not, have not yet been answered.”
Rep. Adam Zabner, D-Iowa City, echoed Mohr’s comments, saying that “what happened in Davenport is simply unacceptable.” He said that in speaking with Iowans about the legislation, he saw a need for measures to improve transparency at all levels of government.
“It’s become clear that many people in local government don’t understand the requirements under the law,” Zabner said. “And so my favorite part of this bill was requiring those trainings, making sure that at every level of government, elected officials understand that they’re responsible for open records.”
The bill will include a funding component of $104,000 to allow the state public information board to hire a full-time staff attorney, who will be in charge of the mandatory training requirement. Rep. Brent Siegrist, R-Council Bluffs, the bill’s floor manager, said the hiring of another IPIB employee was already a point of discussion in budgeting for the upcoming year, as the board needs more staff to address high quantities of public information violations and complaints.
Siegrist also said the training component — likely an hour-long module appointed and elected officials would have to complete within their first 90 days in office — is important so that Iowa government officials are aware of the open records and open meetings requirements, and so that they cannot falsely claim that didn’t know about or didn’t understand the law.
“While some people will be upset with this and regard having to have this training every time they’re elected or appointed to board as a nuisance, the real nuisance is when we have violations, time and time again, in the open records law in the state of Iowa and open meetings law,” Siegrist said. “And we ought not to tolerate that.”
The bill moves next to the Senate.
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