Oregon’s Public Records Advocate Todd Albert will serve four more years in the job, where he is responsible for resolving disputes over access to public records and training government officials and members of the public on transparency laws.

Albert has held the job of public records advocate since late 2020, when he was appointed by then-Gov. Kate Brown after prior advocate Becky Chiao clashed with the state board she chaired over the board’s efforts to make the public records advocate more independent from the governor.

His annual salary is $177,156, according to the Department of Administrative Services.

Oregon’s first public records advocate, Ginger McCall, resigned five years ago, accusing the governor’s staff members of pressuring her to take their side on public records matters rather than maintaining independence. McCall reported in 2019 that members of the public often faced long delays and high fees when they sought public records. Brown’s administration was upset that McCall released the review without her staff’s review or sign-off, McCall said, and since then public records advocates have not produced any reports.

State legislators voted in 2021 to increase the independence of the public records advocate, including by shifting the authority to hire and fire the advocate from the governor, to a board composed of state and local government representatives, news media, members of the public and government employees. The board voted on Aug. 14 to appoint Albert to a second term, beginning in October.

A small survey of people who interacted with Albert during trainings or while seeking assistance with disputes over public records access largely recorded positive reviews. However Nick Budnick, a board member with the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and editor-in-chief at the health care publication The Lund Report, noted during the meeting on Albert’s reappointment that the Oregon Public Records Advocate website lacks any up-to-date reports on what the advocate has accomplished.

“When the advocate’s office was set up, the intent was in part to address this issue of disruptive situations caused by records requests or individual requesters through the process of alternative dispute resolution,” Budnick said. “I wondered to what extent that process is working and whether it’s working as intended.” He said he could not find those metrics online.

Mark Landauer, chair of the Public Records Advisory Council and a lobbyist whose clients include the Special Districts Association of Oregon, said he was not aware of what performance metrics, if any, are currently published on the records advocate website, but Albert has reported regularly to the council on the numbers of trainings and mediations he provided.

Michael Kron, special counsel to the Oregon attorney general and a member of the public records board, said the discussion identified opportunities for improvement. “I am a little bit concerned with some of the things that I’ve heard today,” Kron said. “I think some of it reflects that we could do better as the (Public Records Advisory Council) making sure that what’s happening in the advocate’s office is visible to the public and that we have good insight into it.”