Ryan Carboni

What are public agencies in California? It’s quite hard to determine what agencies are public or not.

Shawn Musgrave

Great question. The First Amendment Coalition has a fantastic primer on CPRA, available here:

What agencies are governed by the Act?

A.    State: All state agencies except legislative and judicial agencies.

  1. Courts and court administrative bodies (such as the Judicial Council and the Administrative Office of the Courts) are not subject to the PRA. Access to court records is governed by constitutional and common law principles established by case law, by the California Rules of Court, and by separate statutes governing certain court records.

  2. State legislative records not available under PRA. There is a separate statute that governs records of the Legislature (the Legislative Open Records Act).

B.    Local: All local agencies, including school districts and any board or commission of a city, county, municipal corporation or other political subdivision. Note: If a public body is subject to the Brown Act, it is also subject to the PRA.

Ryan Carboni

Unfortunately the number of colleges and public organizations probably bring it to the thousands. And there are thousands more privately-run publicly funded organizations who operate according to public law.