Gov. Janet Mills has signed into law new requirements for more transparency about misconduct by law enforcement personnel and other public employees, but rules that would require the state to increase and tighten the retention period for disciplinary records were not included. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal, file

Gov. Janet Mills has signed into law new requirements for more transparency about misconduct by law enforcement personnel and other public employees, but rules that would require the state to increase and tighten the retention period for disciplinary records were not included.

The law changes, which Mills signed June 12, require disciplinary records for any public employee to include details of the misconduct, and that agencies must produce those disciplinary records on request. If a final disciplinary action is dropped, the information must still be made public, but with the employee’s name omitted.

The changes follow a 2021 joint investigation by the Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News that found disciplinary histories of state police troopers were often obscured by vague language in the records or because the records were removed from personnel files. The lack of transparency prevented the public from learning about state employee misconduct and assessing whether agencies were taking appropriate disciplinary action.

The papers successfully sued the Maine State Police last year for access to more information, which led to L.D. 1397 being introduced.

Disciplinary details are already required for municipal employees, and a state Right to Know Advisory Committee recommended requiring the same for state and county employees.

Though the changes address the content of disciplinary records, the final version of the bill does not include any requirement that the records be retained for a certain period of time and be available to the public beyond the 5-year existing retention schedule required by the Maine State Archives.

The original bill would have eliminated public employees’ ability to use the terms of collective bargaining agreements to remove disciplinary records from public files, often at the request of the disciplined employee. It would have required disciplinary documents be retained for up to 20 years, depending on severity of the transgression. The bill also would have required the agencies that originated those records to make them available on request, even if they had been moved elsewhere.

Members of the Judiciary Committee voted to amend the bill to remove those sections and address document retention in future legislation. Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, who co-chairs both the Right to Know Advisory Committee and the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, said she did not feel comfortable changing the rules for handling disciplinary documents without more perspective from organized labor.

“I thought it was really important, rather than carrying over the whole bill, to pass at least the part that … gives the public a right to know why disciplinary action was taken and then to take out the other stuff (and) work on it in a separate bill,” Carney said.

Carney expects legislation addressing the omitted portion of the bill to be introduced next session.

The Right To Know Advisory Committee, a body established to advise the Legislature on bills relating to Maine’s Freedom of Access Act and other access issues, was consulted extensively in drafting the initial legislation.

Judith Meyer, who has served on the Right To Know Advisory Committee for 20 years and is editor of the Sun Journal in Lewiston, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel, said the final bill’s failure to address collective bargaining means disciplinary records can still be hidden or expunged before citizens can access them.

“The intention of this bill, with widespread support, was to hold police accountable for the discipline and have the public know what is happening in our police department,” Meyer said. “That was the intention, and it failed.”

For supporters, the final bill represents progress toward holding law enforcement officers accountable for their actions and ensuring the public can access as much information as possible.

But mandating transparent language without also requiring transparent document retention falls short of the large scale reform that members of the right to know panel were hoping for.

“What was actually signed into law is the briefest shadow of what we were trying to do,” Meyer said.

Those who oppose the original bill had raised concerns about what it would mean for the safety and privacy of public employees who are disciplined.

Its move to alter retention periods and eliminated collective bargaining’s influence stoked anxieties about possible harassment and excessive consequences for minor offenses, according to written testimony presented during the public hearing, including from the Maine Association of Police.

A spokesperson for the Maine State Police did not respond to the Press Herald’s request to answer questions about the requirement to include more detailed information in employees’ final disciplinary letters.