AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 10-7-504, relative to comptroller survey records.
Summary
HB0418 amends Tennessee’s public records law to expand and clarify the confidentiality of certain survey-related materials held by the comptroller of the treasury. The bill makes survey records, responses, data, identifying information, intra-agency and interagency communications, and other input records for comptroller-created, obtained, or compiled surveys confidential. It also expressly allows the comptroller to publish aggregate survey data and survey responses only when they cannot be used to identify individual respondents.
The bill includes an exception for surveys conducted by the office of open records counsel under Tennessee Code Annotated § 8-4-601, meaning those surveys are not covered by this confidentiality provision. The act takes effect immediately upon becoming law, reflecting the legislature’s determination that the public welfare requires prompt implementation.
Impact
The bill amends Tennessee Code Annotated § 10-7-504, which governs exceptions to public records disclosure, by adding stronger protections for comptroller survey materials. It limits access to a broader category of survey-related records and communications, while preserving the ability to release non-identifying aggregate information. The practical effect is to reduce the likelihood that individual respondents or internal survey inputs can be obtained through public records requests, while still allowing some transparency through anonymized reporting.
Sentiment
The bill appears to have had broad support and little visible opposition. It advanced unanimously through the House Public Service Subcommittee and the House State & Local Government Committee, and then passed on the House floor by consent calendar with 96 yeas and 0 nays. The voting pattern suggests the measure was viewed as a routine or noncontroversial records-management adjustment rather than a major policy dispute.
Contention
No committee transcript was provided, and the recorded votes show no opposition, so there is no documented floor or committee controversy in the available materials. The only likely policy tension is between protecting the confidentiality of survey respondents and preserving public access to government records. Supporters would favor shielding identifying information and internal survey inputs to encourage candid responses, while transparency advocates might be concerned about narrowing access to records held by the comptroller.