The City of Logansport livestreams its meetings on its official Facebook page.
City of Logansport image
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana lawmakers are on the verge of passing one of the nation’s farthest-reaching policies aimed at improving access to local government meetings.
House Bill 1167 would require every school board, city and county council and board of county commissioners to livestream and then archive their recorded meetings online for anyone to view for free.
The bill also extends that requirement to the governing body of every state agency.
Rep. Ben Smaltz (R-Auburn), who authored the bill, said his legislation would make local government more transparent by allowing Hoosiers access to meetings at any time from nearly anywhere. The shrinking costs of high-quality cameras and online storage platforms makes the requirements affordable as well, he argued.
“At the state level, we work very hard to record our public meetings, live stream them and make them available in an archived nature,” he said. “But at the local level, that doesn’t happen typically very often.”
That ease of access could encourage more residents to get involved in local government, according to Anthony Fargo, director of Indiana University’s Center for International Media Law and Policy Studies.
“Anyone who’s ever been to a city council meeting or a school board meeting knows that usually there are very few members of the public there unless something really controversial is on the agenda,” he said. “So I think this gives you another outlet for people to be able to find out more about what their government is up to.”
The original bill authored by Smaltz would have required every local governmental agency to livestream meetings, including park boards, townships and planning and zoning boards.
Those smaller agencies were eventually removed from the bill at the behest of the state’s city and county lobbying groups over concerns the requirement could be burdensome for boards in smaller cities and towns.
The bill was also amended to move implementation of the livestreaming requirement from this year to 2025. The archiving requirement was reduced from three years to 90 days.
Jenna Bentley, government affairs director at Accelerating Indiana Municipalities, said her organization opposed the original version of the bill, but now is more supportive of the legislation since it allows a two-year implementation period.
Even so, questions remain about the cost of buying equipment and archiving the videos online, Bentley argued. The Association of Indiana Counties also worries the archiving requirement would be costly for local governments, according to executive director David Bottorff.
“We never like unfunded mandates, but the fact that (Smaltz) has made these accommodations and is allowing us to use really any form of technology is welcome news,” Bottorff said.
The bill easily passed the House in February. The Senate approved the legislation’s second reading Thursday and is poised to give it final approval next week.
If the bill becomes law, Indiana would be one of the first states to implement such requirements for local governments. Similar bills in Virginia and Mississippi failed this year. Other states such as Maryland and South Carolina are considering more livestreaming requirements, but mostly for state agencies.
Some Indiana cities and counties already livestream and archive meetings. Many joined in during the pandemic when social distancing requirements were in affect.
Indiana has a good track record with passing public-access friendly legislation, according to Fargo, and the livestreaming bill would add to that push for more open government.
“I think this would be a major feather in our cap in terms of transparency,” the IU director said. “I think it opens up the potential for many more people to be able to really see what their governmental bodies are doing.”
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