5. Expense reports

There is no statutory or case law addressing this issue.

No apparent exemption precludes access under the public records law to expense reports.  Case law indicates the public’s interest in access would generally outweigh privacy interests. Compare International Ass'n of Firefighters, Local 1264 v. Municipality of Anchorage and Anchorage Daily News, 973 P.2d 1132 (Alaska 1999), discussed in subsection M.1 above.

(This section is blank. See the point above.)

Reimbursement forms are considered to be personnel records and are subject to disclosure under the FOIA, so long as information that would invade the employee’s privacy, such as a driver’s license number, is redacted. Ark. Op. Att’y Gen. Nos. 2003-135, 2001-120.

Public. With no express exemption applicable to public employee expense reports, they are presumptively public and routinely disclosed.

Open. Documents that relate to the expenditure of public funds are declared to be "public records." See Pinnacol Assurance v. KMGH-TV, No. 10-cv-4127 (Denver Dist. Ct., Aug. 19, 2010) (ordering state unemployment insurance provider to disclose employee’s expense reports).

There are no provisions regarding expense reports in general.  Thus, these should be treated as any other record under FOIA and presumed open unless a record comes within a specific exemption -- for example, if disclosure of the record in question would constitute an invasion of privacy under Conn. Gen. Stat. §1-210 (b)(2).  See Records Outline at II.A.2.b; see also Kureczka v. FOIC, 228 Conn. 271, 636 A.2 777 (1994) and Mozzochi v. Town of Glastonbury, Do. #FIC 86-253 (Dec. 16, 1986) (job applications are disclosable with certain information masked out to protect applicant’s privacy).

Expense reports are not exempt as long as they meet the definition of a public record. 29 Del. C. § 10002(l), (o); Del. Op. Att’y Gen., No. 06-ib17 (Aug. 21, 2006).

Not specifically addressed.

Expense records are generally subject to Chapter 119 and are not exempt from disclosure.  See Palm Beach Cmty. Coll. Found., Inc. v. WFTV, Inc., 611 So. 2d 588, 589-90 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993) (expense reports that did not identify donors were not exempt from disclosure under Florida Statute section 240.331(3) on annual audits).

The identity of donors who desire to remain anonymous shall be protected, and that anonymity shall be maintained in the auditor’s report.  All records of the organization, other than the information necessary for the annual report required by s. 240.311(3)(h)6. And the auditor’s report and supplemental data requested by the board of trustees and the Auditor General, shall be confidential and exempt from the provisions of s. 119.07(1).

Id.; see also Dade Aviation Consult. v. Knight Ridder, Inc., 800 So. 2d 302 (Fla. 3d DCA 2001) (subjecting to disclosure expense records pertaining to lobbyist payments and other non-reimbursable expenses, which are public records).

Expense reports have not been exempted from the Act’s disclosure requirements.

There is no statutory or case law addressing this issue.

Not specifically addressed by the Act.

Open. See 5 ILCS 140/2.10.

Expense reports are not specifically addressed in the statute. However, expense reports would typically not be contained in personnel files, but rather would be submitted to the agency’s financial officer for payment, and thus would be subject to public access under the general provisions of the Access to Public Records Act.

Not unless they come within the definition of “compensation.”

To the extent that expense reports are “prepared, owned, used, in the possession of or retained by a public agency,” they are open. Ky. Rev. Stat. 61.870(2).

No specific provision, but under the Act, expense reports should be treated as a public record and should be produced to a requester absent an applicable exemption.

Expense reports are a matter of public record.

There is no statutory or case law addressing this issue.

Whether Boston mayor’s office must disclose its employees’ telephone records depends on factors including whether the calls are personal or for business and, if personal, whether they are paid for using public funds.  Attorney Gen. v. Assistant Comm’r of Real Prop. Dep’t of Boston, 380 Mass. 623, 627, 404 N.E.2d 1254, 1257 (1980) (vacating trial court’s disclosure order and scheduling a hearing to apply balancing test under privacy exemption (b)). 

Travel expense reports did not meet an exemption because the reports could lead to discovery of personal information. Booth Newspapers, Inc. v. Univ. of Mich. Bd. of Regents, 444 Mich. 211, 507 N.W.2d 422 (1993).

Expense reports are not specifically addressed in the Act.

Depends on content.

No reported cases were found dealing specifically with expense reports.

Open.

There is no law on point.

There is no statutory or case law addressing the issue

Neither the Statute nor case law addresses this issue.

N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(e) provides that “Immediate access ordinarily shall be granted to budgets, bills, vouchers, contracts, including collective negotiations agreements and individual employment contracts, and public employee salary and overtime information.”

Such reports are public records. NMSA 1978 § 14-2-6(G).

Presumably open, but there is no law that speaks directly to the issue.

Public.

The open records statute does not address expense reports contained in personnel records

There is no statutory or case law addressing this issue.

Every public body and public official has a specific duty to keep and maintain complete records of receipt and expenditure of public funds. 51 O.S. § 24A.4. The Oklahoma Attorney General has determined that the Open Records Act requires the state legislature and its employees to make records of expense reimbursements available. 2008 OK AG 19.

There are no statutes or cases that specifically address expense reports of government employees.  However, the law conditionally exempts:

Information consisting of production records, sale or purchase records or catch records, or similar business records of a private concern or enterprise, required by law to be submitted to or inspected by a governmental body to allow it to determine fees or assessments payable or to establish production quotas, and the amounts of such fees or assessments payable or paid, to the extent that such information is in a form which would permit identification of the individual concern or enterprise. This exemption does not include records submitted by long term care facilities as defined in ORS 442.015 to the state for purposes of reimbursement of expenses or determining fees for patient care. Nothing in this subsection shall limit the use which can be made of such information for regulatory purposes or its admissibility in any enforcement proceeding.

ORS 192.345(5) (formerly ORS 192.501(5)).

Expense reports are presumptively accessible.

There is no statutory or case law addressing this issue.

Documents reflecting the expenditure of public money are specifically declared public information. S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-50(A)(6).

Presumably open.

Generally open.

It is undecided as to whether common law right of privacy provides a basis for protecting from disclosure to newspapers, under the Texas Public Information Act (PIA), expense vouchers for Governor Rick Perry’s security detail held by the Department of Public Safety (DPS). Tex. Dep’t. of Pub. Safety v. Cox Tex. Newspapers, L.P.,343 S.W.3d 112 (Tex. 2011). The Texas Supreme Court held that common law protects from public disclosure highly intimate or embarrassing facts as well as information that substantially threatens physical harm.  In doing so, the Texas Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision that the information was public and remanded the case so the trial court can examine each of the disputed documents to determine what information may be confidential and what must be disclosed in light of the ruling that information is protected if it creates a substantial threat of physical harm.  And, as applied here, the Court opined that the vouchers may be protected since the documents reveal specific details about the number of officers assigned to protect the governor, their general location in relation to him, and their dates of travel.

Not addressed.

Not addressed.  However, records of interdepartmental and intradepartmental communications in any county, city, town, village, town school district, incorporated school district, union school district, consolidated water district, fire district, or any other political subdivision of the State are exempt from disclosure to the extent those communications include preliminary information that precedes the presentation of the budget at a public meeting. 1 V.S.A. § 317(c)(17).

Records of all allowances or reimbursements paid to any officer, official or employee of a public body are open. Va. Code Ann. § 2.2-3705.1.1.

There is no specific authority addressing disclosure of expense reports under the PRA.

(This section is blank. See the point above.)

Expense reports are available for public inspection, subject to the balancing test.

These reports should be open to public inspection, as no exemption applies.  There has been no court cases examining this issue directly.  The Wyoming Supreme Court said any exemption forbidding the disclosure of records related to the expenditure of public funds must be expressly textual.