House Bill 2463, which will officially be assigned an act number soon, is now law.

This law requires the Office of Open Records to “publish guidelines for a Commonwealth agency specifying how the Commonwealth agency is required to respond to a request for records made during a disaster declaration when the Governor has ordered the Commonwealth agency to close the Commonwealth agency’s physical location.”

Those guidelines must be published “[n]o later than five days after the effective date of this section.”

The OOR plans to publish the guidelines on Friday, July 31.

Between now (Monday, July 27, at 9:30 a.m.) and Wednesday, July 29, at 1:00 p.m., the OOR is accepting public comment on the guidelines. Comments can be directed to the OOR via the contact page on our website or via email, openrecords@pa.gov.

Please note that all submitted comments will be public records.

Added on July 28, 2020: HB 2463 is now Act 77 of 2020.