Senator John McCollister
AGO 16-3
No. 16-003
Nebraska Attorney General Opinions
State of Nebraska office of the Attorney General
February 16, 2016
SUBJECT: Whether Certain Nebraska State Fair Contracts Are Exempt from the Disclosure Requirements Under the Taxpayer Transparency Act, as Amended by LB 851?
REQUESTED BY: Senator John McCollister, Nebraska State Legislature
WRITTEN BY: Douglas J. Peterson, Attorney General, Leslie S. Donley, Assistant Attorney General
In your opinion request letter, you indicate that you have introduced LB 851, which would amend the Taxpayer Transparency Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 84-602, 84-602.01-602.02 (2014, Supp. 2015) ("Act"). Specifically, LB 851 would require any "quasi government agency," defined as a "state entity" in section 2 of the bill, to provide financial information to the State Treasurer for inclusion on the state's transparency website.
1 Your bill also requires quasi government agencies to provide copies of their contracts to the Department of Administrative Services ("DAS") for posting on its website.
2
You state that the Nebraska State Fair, as "a quasi-public agency," is covered under the provisions of LB 851. The State Fair Board has conveyed to you its general support of your proposed legislation, but has concerns that disclosing its midway contract and contracts for "national acts," "would reveal proprietary and commercial information that would be damaging to the operations of the State Fair and hence detrimental to the public purpose of having a top quality State Fair."
3 You indicate in your letter that some members of the Legislature may seek to exclude the State Fair contracts from the disclosure requirements of the Act. However, you question whether express exemption is necessary in light of current statutory language, retained by LB 851, which states:
Nothing in this section requires the disclosure of information which is considered confidential under state or federal law or is not a public record under section 84-712.05.
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 84-602.02; LB 851, section 3, page 8, II. 5-7. You also refer us to the exception to disclosure set out in Neb. Rev. Stat. § 84-712.05(3) of the Nebraska Public Records Statutes, Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 84-712 to 84-712.09 (2014) ("NPRS"), relating to proprietary and commercial information.
Your specific question to us is as follows:
Considering these provisions of existing law, would the State Fair contracts described in the email be records which may be withheld from the public as proprietary and commercial information which would give advantage to business competitors and hence be exempt from the requirements of LB 851?
DISCUSSION
The NPRS generally allow Nebraska citizens and other interested persons the right to examine public records in the possession of public...
