ALBANY, N.Y. — A new report by the watchdog organization Reinvent Albany says that Governor Hochul's administration is falling behind with the transparency goals it established on the day she took office in 2021.
During her first public address as governor, Hochul said "In a new era of transparency, one of my hallmarks of my administration, who to me, it's very simple, will focus on open ethical governing that New Yorkers will trust."
Hochul promised to have executive chamber legal counsel find ways to improve the speed in which freedom of information law requests are answered. In 2021, Governor Hochul also directed all state agencies to evaluate how they can be more transparent.
Fast forward to 2024, and Governor Hochul required state agencies to update their transparency plans.
According to the analysis by Reinvent Albany, out of 66 agencies that were tracked, more than half didn't provide information on how they comply with transparency mandates including the Open Meetings Law, Freedom of Information Law, and an executive order related to open data.
"We think that's an unfortunate step backwards with these plans," says Rachel Fauss, a senior policy advisor at Reinvent Albany. "Transparency affects every area of state government in the service it provides."
The report also says that 6 agencies still haven't published their transparency plan for 2024, including the executive chamber (governor's office).
The other agencies that did not provide plans are CUNY, Division of the Budget, Governor's Office of Storm Recovery, Office of Inspector General, and Office of Renewable Energy Siting.
"In every substantive area, we looked at agencies reported less information, and didn't give the governor or the public an idea of how they were going to improve transparency," Fauss said. "So the plans were less complete in all the substantive areas that we reviewed.
Reinvent Albany believes three measures are being discussed in the current legislative session that could improve transparency within state government:
- FOIL Reporting – S8671-A/A9621-A (Hoylman-Sigal/McDonald) would require state and local bodies subject to report data about their FOIL process to the Committee on Open Government (COOG), which would publish data on its website and via data.ny.gov. State agencies would report full FOIL logs, and local agencies would report annual totals of requests received and closed. COOG must make recommendations for expanding local reporting by Jan 1, 2027. Passage of this bill would make New York a national leader in public records request reporting.
- Open Data for Debarment Lists – S9398 (Ramos) would require the Department of Labor (DOL), Workers Compensation Board (WCB), and Office of General Services to publish lists of debarred companies and individuals as open data. The current DOL “list” of people and companies debarred by the WCB is nearly useless due to a restricted, balky search form.
- Open Meetings Law Improvements – A10266 (Simone) would require agencies to hold hybrid meetings, ensuring in-person and remote access for the public and members of public bodies, and close loopholes that result in less public notice for meetings and delayed access to the materials up for discussion.
2 On Your Side wanted to ask Governor Hochul about this when she visited Buffalo on Monday, but she only took limited questions from reporters. An email to her office seeking a response went unanswered.