State politics: Idaho

Idaho Senate Passes Bill to Set Up Electronic Document Repository

By Sharon Fisher, 2-19-08

Idaho’s state Senate passed a bill this morning that sets up an electronic repository for state documents to make it easier for citizens to gain access to state documents and, eventually, to save money.

Currently, state agencies are supposed to send “twenty copies of all documents, reports, surveys, monographs, serial publications, compilations, pamphlets, bulletins, leaflets, circulars, maps, charts or broadsides of a public nature which it produces for public distribution” to the Idaho Commission for Libraries, ostensibly to make them available to the public.

“A lot of agencies are not complying with the requirement, and even if they are, it doesn’t make sense, because they’re created electronically in the first place,” said Senator Kate Kelly, D-Boise, who sponsored Senate Bill 1321.

What the bill does is change the requirement to instead send one digital copy and two printed copies, Kelly said.

According to the bill’s statement of purpose, state agencies spent $4,297,800 in FY2006 and $5,347,600 in FY2007 for “printing and binding” services. Estimated costs to implement the digital repository are $202,000 for the first year, made up of $30,000 in one-time capital expenses for server, storage, UPS, etc.; $50,000 ($40,000 one-time) in operating expenses for content management license; and $122,000 in ongoing personnel expenses for three staff members.

Disclaimer: I worked on a survey of state agencies this bill used for research while a graduate assistant at Boise State University’s Social Science Research Center. However, I am using only publicly available information in this article.

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