Senate passes bill to expand Pa. open-records law

A proposed overhaul of Pennsylvania’s 6-year-old Right-to-Know Law will require state-related universities to make more financial information public and restrict the records available to prison inmates.

The bill sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi passed the Senate unanimously Wednesday and now moves to the House.

The bill would not fully apply the open-records law to the state-related schools, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple and Lincoln. But it would require them to publicly reveal more budget information and make it available in user-friendly online databases.

Prisoners, whose appeals represent 40 percent of the work at the state Office of Open Records, would have less access but their personal records and those related to their incarceration would remain available.

Pileggi says his bill builds upon experience with the 2008 law.