Dive Brief:

• Florida’s 12 public universities have created dozens of private corporations that allow them to hide information from the public on taxpayer-funded salaries, contracts, policies, and business records.
• The private corporations don’t have to comply with the state’s Sunshine Law, which requires that government actions be made public, the Associated Press reported.
• The university corporations are also taking advantage of a state law that limits the liability of government agencies to $200,000 if they lose a lawsuit, regardless of the size of a jury award.

Dive Insight:

In other states, the law governing similar corporations is uneven. In California, Louisiana, and West Virginia, courts say they don’t have to respond to public records requests. In Ohio, a university corporation was ruled to be subject to the state's open records law. The AP reported that it submitted requests for staff salaries, donors, and contracts to 30 of the corporations in Florida, and none of them provided information for all three requests. Fourteen of them said “no” to all three requests.