MORGANTOWN — A bill to mandate a state website for legal advertisements in order to bypass print ads caused some confusion and consternation in the House Judiciary Committee Monday morning, and the bill was channeled to a subcommittee for some retooling.
Local governments and the state are required by law to buy legal ads to offer public notice on a variety of matters, according to the West Virginia Press Association, which is among the bill’s opponents: air quality permits, zoning changes, delinquent taxes, bids for government work projects, government financial statements and election ballots among them.
Depending on the type of ad, the law requires them to run weekly for two or three successive weeks in the appropriate daily or weekly paper.
HB 4025 would require that state auditor to set up a website where state agencies and local governments could choose to run ads for free. By doing so, they would be required to run only one print ad instead of two or three.
The bill comes at the recommendation of the legislative auditor’s office, which presented a report to legislators during the December interims. The report cited increasing internet use, statewide newspaper circulation declines (about 50%) and the expense – a combined $4.6 million in Fiscal Year 2019 for state agencies, counties, school boards, higher education and the 10 largest cities – as the justification for the move.
Counties spent the most – $2.6 million. State agencies came in second at $1.6 million. School board spent $323,550; the 10 cities spent $86,355.
Legislative Auditor and Manager Aaron Allred told the committee that only 19 counties have a daily paper and that with declining circulation the state’s largest, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, has ceased its Monday print edition.
More people get their news from TV or the internet, he said, than from newspapers.
He believes, he said, that the bill strikes a balance for older residents who read newspapers and residents under 40 who get their news from their cell phones or computers.
In general, it’s easy to perceive delegates’ positions on bills by the content and presentation of their questions. Some committee members view the bill as a money-saving alternative for government bodies. Noting in the bill precludes a government from not using the website and sating with all print.
Others view it as limiting public access to information in a state with spotty or no broadband access in huge areas.
Delegate Andrew Robinson, D-Kanawha, worried that governments with unpopular issues to publicize could choose to run the required print ad well in advance of the matter at hand, then hide the ad on the website as the date approaches.
Also, he and others said, said, this three-paragraph bill affects 346 separate section of code dealing with legal ads; that could cause a lot of confusion.
Delegate John Mandt, R-Cabell, worried that the web ads would deprive property owners of adequate notice on matters that affect their property. “I would simply have to hope I would catch it on the shorter newspaper notification.”
Don Smith, executive director of the press association, fielded some questions. The auditor’s report, he said, failed to take into account newspapers’ online editions for its circulation figures, and failed to distinguish between readership and circulation. Many people will read a single paper. “The impact and reach of newspapers is greater than it’s ever been in West Virginia.”
The report also failed to notice, he said, that while local governments pay for legal ads, they earn far more in the fees they charge to run those ads. Boone County, for instance, paid $4,923.81 for legal ads but received $76,010 in fees. Mercer County paid $50,734.05 but earned $451,878.48.
Most important, Smith said, it will deprive residents of access to information. Newspapers circulate in their local communities; those legal ads come to them. This bill puts two-thirds of their public notice on a website where they would have to know how to hunt for it – in a state where large swaths lack broadband access.
It also injects politics into legal ads, he said. He county official who doesn’t like the local paper’s editorial policy could choose to punish it by placing ads on the state website. “That is one of the scariest things about this.”
After the questioning, chair John Shott, R-Mercer, appointed several members to a subcommittee to work further on the bill.
Tweet David Beard @dbeardtdp Email dbeard@dominionpost.com
