News : Senate modifies public notices bill to maintain newspaper requirement

An Iowa Senate bill that would have eliminated a requirement for public entities to publish certain notices in newspapers was significantly altered on Thursday to keep the newspaper requirement.

Senate File 546 was then approved by a 37-12 vote.

"Public notices will still be printed in the newspapers," said Sen. Chris Cournoyer, a LeClaire Republican who introduced the initial version of the bill. "I'm going to repeat that: Public notices will still be printed in the newspapers. That requirement does not change."

Instead, the bill will add a requirement for newspapers to also publish the notices on their websites and make them freely available to read there.

The amended bill is significantly different from its earlier version, which opponents said would lead to a less-informed public and to the closures of newspapers because of lost revenue from the notices. Last month, Cournoyer shrugged aside those worries and said it's not "the government's job to support the newspaper industry."

The earlier version would have created a new state website to publish the notices for lesser fees. Another proposed version - which was withdrawn - would have eliminated the newspaper requirements for cities of 1,000 or fewer residents. Cournoyer said the latest version is the result of significant feedback from people affected by it.

"We surveyed cities, counties and schools and learned that statewide there are tens of thousands of public notices that cost taxpayers over $9 million to publish," she said. "We also learned how dependent Iowa newspapers are on the revenue stream that they get from public notices. We also learned that many people still really like to read their newspapers and read public notices in those newspapers. So all of those messages were well received."

Susan Patterson Plank, executive director of the Iowa Newspaper Association, which lobbies for newspapers and already maintains a free website with the public notices that are published by its members, said: "We are thrilled that the Senate is maintaining public notices in newspapers, where the largest numbers of the public can see them."

The bill also alleviates a problem for cities, schools and others that have been, at times, hamstrung by newspapers' cutbacks in the number of days each week they print: Their dates of notice would no longer be bound to when the notices appear in print, but can be based on when they are published by the newspapers online.

That's an important distinction because the notices have time constraints imposed by Iowa law. Notices of public hearings, for example, must be published at least four days in advance and no more than 20.

"Most newspapers, unfortunately, are down to once a week," said Sen. Mike Klimesh, R-Spillville, a newspaper owner and former mayor. "If we have publication requirements we need to meet in that timeframe, it puts us at a huge disadvantage. Being able to put those legal notifications in front of our paywall now within 48 hours provides a huge service to government entities that rely on us to get the message out to folks."

The bill eliminates a small number of public notice requirements for publishing in newspapers, including those for public bond sales - which already require public hearings and notices that precede the bond sales - and school board vacancies that will be filled by appointment.

Editor's note: Iowa Capital Dispatch is a member of the Iowa Newspaper Association.