New laws will give the public unprecedented access to public government data and support eGovernance innovation efforts.

New York has passed an open-data law that creates new transparency requirements for state and local governing agencies to provide unprecedented public access to governance information. The new legislation applies to records scheduled to be discussed during an open meeting, including proposed resolutions, laws, rules, policies and amendments. The documents must be posted online when possible if the agency's Web site is updated regularly and it uses a high-speed Internet connection.

With BoardDocs paperless agenda solutions, boards have all the tools they need to comply. Our services allow your organization to share all public documents prior to the meeting via the Internet. If your board has any questions about the new law, we recommend to check with your legal advisors.

Even if you do not reside in the state of New York, you may be seeing something like this in your area in the future. Technology provides a means for public governing bodies to easily be more transparent with stakeholders. Those who decide to be more transparent are fostering better relationships with their community. With the trend for more open governance, it is only a matter of time before more states pass laws and regulations forcing local governing bodies to share this information. BoardDocs is a turn-key, affordable solution that has proven to help organizations increase overall effectiveness, save money and reduce time-of-staff, while meeting this goal.

Indeed, New York has been one of the most proactive states in following the feds to support open data and use technology to foster more public engagement. We believe the transparency trend will continue and the process in which transparency is carried out will evolve. Because citizens will continue to demand more government data, state and local governments will need to lead more efforts to respond to that demand.

If you have any questions about how your board can increase transparency with stakeholders, please feel free to call us at 800-407-0141 for more details or visit www.boarddocs.com.