In 2014, Connecticut's towns are still forced to pay to post legal notices — such as tax foreclosures, coastal site plans, lists of taxable personal properties, even budgets — in obscure pages of printed newspapers; posting them online doesn't count.
This antiquated state law ignores the broader options provided by technology, which allows delivery of information to residents in faster, more direct ways. The failure of this mandate to evolve costs towns and cities nearly $5 million annually in advertisement fees (charged at some newspapers' highest rates). The mandate can cost our poorest cities big dollars per year, and burdens small towns too. Here are just a few examples: Litchfield, $16,000; Manchester, $75,000; Milford, $88,000; Berlin, $33,000 and Ansonia, $40,000.
A bill to rectify this problem is before the General Assembly and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities supports its passage.
The legal notices mandate suppresses local governments' visibility, protects the status quo and uses property tax dollars as a life preserver for financially strapped newspapers. Municipal officials are sympathetic to newspapers that would lose revenue under the bill, but property taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize print newspapers. The price of keeping this and other unfunded state mandates at the local level is higher property taxes and/or municipal service cuts.
The proposed bill is a reasonable compromise: It would provide significant relief from a long-standing, costly mandate on towns and cities by modifying the requirement to post the full text of all legal notices in local newspapers.
Municipalities are not seeking complete repeal of the law, but rather a reasonable modification. This bill would allow for publishing notice of the availability of a document in local newspapers, along with a summary and clear instruction as to how to obtain additional information or the complete text of the posting. The proposal would also allow notices to be posted in weekly, free newspapers.
The state law on legal notices is designed to ensure the public is provided information on governmental actions and issues. To this end, local governments spend millions of dollars every year publishing lengthy documents, in their entirety, in local publications.
In the 21st century, the quickest, most transparent and cost-effective way to get information to the greatest number of residents is via the Internet. The Internet is where people shop, communicate, do their banking and share general information. Municipal and state websites have become a critical lifeline linking people's living rooms to their governments instantly. Just like the rise of local cable access stations, the Internet and municipal/state websites have allowed governmental activities to emerge even further into the public spotlight.
The Internet is used to disseminate a wide array of information on all levels. The state has moved to a paperless system in similar ways — the General Assembly several years ago stopped printing certain bills and legislative documents, and state law requires proposed state agency regulations to be placed online instead of in paper form.
No one is seeking to hamper the public's right to know; rather, towns and cities are seeking a more cost-effective and efficient manner in which to provide information.
Newspapers have had a captive client in municipal government for years and have taken advantage of this mandate by sometimes charging their highest advertising rate for postings. In addition, these legal notices are used as filler throughout the paper to take up excess space — they are not usually placed in a coordinated manner to allow readers ease of access to the information. If the newspapers were serious about ensuring adequate public notification, they would print all public notices in a single section and list the pages in their table of contents.
Municipalities continue to make sacrifices and explore ways to be more efficient and save money. Now is the time for the legislature to enact meaningful mandate relief for towns and cities — at no cost to the state.
Leo Paul is first selectman of Litchfield and a member of the board of directors of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities.
