Senate committee hears divided testimony on changes to Colorado Open Records Act; SB 107 postponed

Senate committee members heard more than three hours of testimony on Senate Bill 107, a package of changes to the Colorado Open Records Act intended to ease administrative burdens on custodians of public records while adding some new transparency requirements.

Senator Kipp, the bill’s co‑prime sponsor, said the measure "modernize[s] CORA" by balancing requesters’ rights with the staffing realities of local governments. Kipp told the committee the bill extends the statutory response time from 3 to 5 working days and lengthens the extenuating‑circumstances extension from 7 to 10 additional working days. She also described a new remedy: "the custodian who fails to respond within the required time frame must provide the requester with one free hour of research and retrieval time for each calendar day the response is late." (Senator Kipp)

Supporters — including county attorneys, school districts, municipal utilities and special districts — said those modest changes would help jurisdictions with small staffs manage large, complex requests without undermining transparency. Kim Sorrells, Jefferson County attorney, walked the committee through county statistics showing a sharp rise in requests (Jefferson County reported 217 CORA requests in 2019 and 792 in 2025) and said some requests have required many times the estimated hours to fulfill. Lauren Parsons of Denver Public Schools said large requests often require manual review to protect student privacy and that the bill would allow districts to balance classroom needs with records work.

Opponents — including the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, Colorado Public Radio, investigative reporters and the League of Women Voters — argued the bill would create new barriers and longer delays for journalists and the public. Jeff Roberts of CFOIC warned that "delays, exorbitant fees and wrongly applied exemptions already create significant obstacles" and that the bill would let governments take up to three weeks in some cases. Tony Kovaleski, a retired investigative reporter, said open records are "the lifeblood of what we do" and recounted investigations that relied on timely access to records.

The bill also contains transparency provisions: it would require public entities to post core policies, records‑retention policies and instructions for making a request; require a fee breakdown when a custodian quotes an amount; and clarify that if an entity accepts electronic payments it must make that option available for CORA fees. Senator Kipp said the sponsors would offer an amendment to remove a provision that treated requests made for direct commercial solicitation differently; the committee adopted Amendment L001 by voice consent to strip the pecuniary‑gain provision to avoid a promised gubernatorial veto.

After extensive testimony and questions, Senator Linstead moved to advance the bill to the committee of the whole with a favorable recommendation; that motion failed on a roll call. The vice chair then moved to postpone SB 107 indefinitely, and the committee agreed to postpone consideration of the bill by reverse roll call. The postponement leaves the substantive tradeoffs unresolved: proponents framed SB 107 as a practical compromise to relieve overburdened custodians, while opponents said the changes would reduce the public’s timely access to government records.

The committee’s action delays any immediate change to the Colorado Open Records Act and leaves open the possibility of future legislation or a refiled proposal in a later session.