MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin residents might want to seek changes to their state’s transparency laws, because public officials are apparently allowed to approve billion dollar budgets without first sharing the details with the public.

Last month the University of Wisconsin refused to honor a Freedom of Information request for its preliminary 2016-17 budget before it was formally approved by the Board of Regents, which was widely perceived as a violation of the state’s open records law.

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The university’s refusal to share details of the proposed budget denied citizens the opportunity to inspect the details, and share any thoughts or concerns with members of the Board of Regents before they voted.

It’s likely that at least some citizens – particularly UW students and their families – would have wanted to comment, because the new budget included an increase in student fees on every campus.

Now an official from the Wisconsin Department of Justice has opined that the university had no responsibility under the law to share the details of the recommended budget when the media requested a copy.

“There is no requirement under the open meetings law that the board post its proposed budget ahead of time,” wrote Paul Ferguson, an assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Office of Open Government, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

“As for whether the UW System violated the open records law by withholding documents once they were requested, Ferguson noted that the law doesn’t specify that records requests must be fulfilled within a specific time period,” the State Journal reported.

“Even if a record has been provided to the members of a board, Ferguson wrote, public officials responsible for maintaining records must still review the documents and subject them to a ‘balancing test’ to determine whether they should be released.”

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In June the University of Wisconsin’s Board of Regents adopted a $6.23 billion budget for the university system.

The State Journal requested a copy of the preliminary budget before the board voted on it, something the university routinely provided in previous years. But UW officials claimed they couldn’t honor the request because the budget was still being prepared.

The document was not shared with the media until about 90 minutes before the Board of Regents vote, according to media reports.

Later the State Journal reported that the proposed budget had been shared with members of the Board of Regents on June 3, nearly a week before the vote.

Bill Leuders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, told the State Journal that he still believes the university violated the law, despite Ferguson’s interpretation.

“They purposely and deliberately delayed,” Lueders was quoted as saying. “UW’s actions were improper even though (Ferguson) doesn’t draw that conclusion.”