Two Senate-passed bills intended to improve public access to state and local government records in Oregon are pending in the House Judiciary Committee.

Whether they get a hearing is up to Rep. Greg Macpherson, D-Lake Oswego, the lawyer and 1968 Albany Union High School graduate who heads the committee as chairman.

He couldn't be reached for this story, but a committee staffer said hearings were likely.

Senate Bill 554, which the Senate passed 28-0 on April 17, would require a public body to respond "as soon as practicable" to a request for a public record. It also requires units of government to to have a written procedure for making public records available, including a list of possible charges and a statement of how the charges are determined.

The Senate passed the other bill, SB 671, by a vote of 26-1 on April 12. It requires a public body to release a condensed version of factual information in a public record when the record itself is otherwise exempt from disclosure under the attorney-client privilege.

The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association had requested both bills.

State Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, and others sponsored SB 671 as a response to a case out of Klamath Falls, where the county school board had refused to release a report on the investigation of a complaint alleging mismanagement. The report had been prepared by a lawyer hired by the school board. The Court of Appeals upheld the school board, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Local governments sometimes, through rarely, hire outside lawyers to prepare reports. In 2006 the city of Lebanon hired a law firm to see whether the conduct of some council members constituted a hostile work environment. The report concluded that it did not.

In Albany, asked about the requirements of SB 554, the city said it didn't yet have a written policy for handling requests for public records but was working on one.

As for the costs, for copies of most records other that City Council minutes, Albany charges 10 cents a page with a possible $2 fee for research, spokeswoman Marilyn Smith reported.

For council minutes, the charge is $2 for the document plus $1 a page after the first one. For copies of audio tapes, the city charges $15 for the first one, less for additional ones.