Access to UGA athletics records to be slowed by last-minute amendment

Accessing open records relating to Georgia athletics may soon require a much longer waiting period.

An amendment attached to an unrelated records bill passed by the state House and Senate late Tuesday states that "athletic departments and related private athletic associations" will have 90 days to process open records requests. The lone exception to this would be to access salaries for "nonclerical staff," which includes coaches and other various athletic department staffers. 

Senate Bill 323 with the attached amendment will be sent to Gov. Nathan Deal’s desk for a signature.

This law would change how the University of Georgia operates, given that current law states that it must provide access to existing public records within three business days of it being requested, or the agency must give a timetable for how long it will take to produce the records.

State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, is a co-sponsor of the amendment and said the intention is to add extra time in returning open record requests as other states and athletic departments are afforded.

"This will help the startup programs, this applies to every single intercollegiate program in this state, every university from the University of Georgia  … [to] any intercollegiate sport at a D2, D3 school," Ehrhart said. "It just allows us to play on the same field as  Alabama and everybody else."

Specifically mentioning Alabama is interesting considering that Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, hired this past December at a $3.75 million per year salary, was previously with the Crimson Tide as a defensive coordinator.

(Related: How an amendment influenced by Georgia football ends up in a state bill at midnight)

Ehrhart said one of the major reasons for the amendment is due to the numerous requests made to athletic departments when recruiting season nears its end.

National Signing Day, when high school athletes can sign National Letters of Intent with universities to play college athletics, occurred this year on Feb. 3. The Atlanta Journal Constitution published a lengthy story on how much money Georgia’s athletic department spent on recruiting-related expenses since Smart took the job on Feb. 21.

"At that recruiting time of year they get absolutely inundated with people wanting to have that recruiting information and it’s not a level playing field because Georgia, our athletic associations, are private in and of themselves and they don’t have that capacity, so this just allows that type of level playing field," Ehrhart said.

Ehrhart claims this amendment won’t restrict information.

"We’re certainly not asking for an exception of any sort, just an extended time," he said. "We want to put ourselves on the same playing field as all the other states."

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 1:25 PM with the headline "Access to UGA athletics records to be slowed by last-minute amendment."