Missouri Press Association
Serving Missouri Newspapers Since 1867
The following is a legislative update from Clarkston Nelson, LLC concerning the Missouri General Assembly’s 2025 legislative session. Use the information within to develop local coverage of issues important to your readers.
On Monday, Governor Mike Kehoe (R) signed SCS for HCS HBs 145 & 59, as amended, sponsored by Rep. Bill Falkner (R-St. Joseph) and Rep. Bruce Sassmann (R-Bland), legislation that originally deals with records of minor children and state park campers. The bill will go into effect on Aug. 28th.
The bill adds a new Sunshine Law exemption to allow the closure of “any portion of a record that contains individually identifiable information of a minor 17 years and under held by a public governmental body, such as a city, town, village, or park board.” The bill also adds individually identifiable customer information for visitors who make camping, lodging, or other shelter reservations for a municipal park, county park, state park, or historic site to the list of records that are exempt from disclosure under the Sunshine Law, unless the records are requested by or authorized for release by the visitor. The Senate Committee Substitute, however, requires the municipalities of residences and zip codes of park campers to remain open, but their names and residential addresses are to be closed. A new Sunshine Law exemption in the bill closes: “Records to protect the specific location of a plant or animal species considered endangered, threatened, critically imperiled, imperiled, or vulnerable when the known location may cause the species to be at an increased risk of peril.” A floor amendment which applies to St. Louis County and St. Louis City was added to the following current exemption: “Individually identifiable customer usage and billing records for customers of a municipally owned utility or a utility operated by any political subdivision created by Article VI, Section 30(a) of the Constitution of Missouri, unless the records are requested by the customer or authorized for release by the customer, except that a municipally owned utility shall make available to the public the customer's name, billing address, location of service, and dates of service provided for any commercial service account.”
Public Records’ Fees: The bill also notes that the payment of fees for obtaining records may be requested before a governmental body fulfills the request. Also, a request for public records shall be considered withdrawn if the requester fails to remit all fees within 90 days, or within 150 days if the requested fees are greater than $1,000. If the payment of fees is not made within the proper requirements, then the request for public records shall be considered withdrawn. If a records’ request was withdrawn and the same or similar request for public records is made within six months after the expiration of the 90-day or 150-day period, then the public governmental body may request payment of the same fees made for the original request in addition to any allowable fees necessary to fulfill the current request. The public records’ fees provisions were added to the bill through a floor amendment added by Sen. Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville).
Judicial Privacy Act: Another portion of the bill expands the Judicial Privacy Act definition of “court-related officer” to be any actively employed, formerly employed, or retired Missouri judge, prosecuting or circuit attorney, circuit clerk, court administrator, juvenile officer, their employees, and families, and personal information of those persons to be closed records under most circumstances.
