PIERRE - South Dakota should have a uniform system that allows residents to request access to public records from government agencies and sets rules for those requests, including an appeal procedure when records are denied, state Attorney General Larry Long says.

Long says he might recommend that the 2008 Legislature pass a law setting up a records-access process similar to the federal Freedom of Information Act, which sets rules for reviewing and obtaining government documents.

Long says people often do not know where they can find the public information they are seeking.

"One of the problems with obtaining records is that you have to request them from the person who actually has them, under state law currently," he says.

The attorney general also might recommend the Legislature establish a system of fees for obtaining copies of public documents. Some state agencies now can charge for that information while others may not be recovering those costs, he says.

"Some records requests can be fairly time-consuming and onerous and involve a lot of effort and expense," Long explains.

The recommendations might be included with a report by month's end on a massive review of government records, he says. The review involved thousands of state, school district, municipal and county records to determine which ones are open to the public, confidential or unspecified, Long says.

"We hope to find consistency in how those are treated," he says. "Hopefully similar records will be treated similarly across government agencies."

State law generally provides that government records are open only if an agency is required by law to keep those records. Other parts of the law specifically designate some records as closed because they deal with criminal investigations, personal health records, business secrets and other issues.

Dave Bordewyk, general manager of the South Dakota Newspaper Association, says he hopes the Legislature will decide that most unspecified records be deemed open to the public.

"They should go one way or the other. Let's move them to one side of the ledger or the other side," he says. "Obviously, I would argue for a movement toward openness."

Bordewyk likes Long's proposal for a uniform system to request records.

"If you're denied access to a government record, you really have no recourse or nowhere to go to find that out, to determine that. We need that process in South Dakota to ensure that citizens have adequate and proper access and recourse when they are seeking government information," he says.

The media official agrees a fee system is a good idea.

"Right now there is no set fee or process to determine the fees for making copies of many records, and that leads to confusion and problems," Bordewyk says.