State Public Records Law

Revisor of Missouri

 

Miss. Rev. Stat. § 109.005 et. Seq.

 

Read the full text

Exemptions to Disclosure

  • Preliminary deliberations not retained nor presented by agency at public meeting
  • Work product
  • Confidential
  • Privileged
  • Negotiations [any minutes, voting records, etc. to be made available upon execution of agreement]
  • There may be some protection for records that relate to proprietary “scientific and technological innovations.” Miss. Rev. Stat. § 610.021(15). The Sunshine Law does provide that “public records relating to scientific and technological innovations in which the owner has a proprietary interest” may be closed. Miss. Rev. Stat. § 610.021(15).

Access Rights

  • Any member of the public
  • Upon request, response within reasonable period of time, no more than 3 business days
  • Detailed explanation must be given re: cause of any delay and place and earliest time and date record will be available – may exceed 3 days for reasonable cause
  • Written statement of grounds for denial, citing specific provision of law (w/in 3 business days of original request)
  • Description of exempt data severed from record with exempt and nonexempt,if separation/redaction is readily apparent to requestor – unless description would defeat purpose of exemption
  • Fees for both copying and inspection access
  • Up to $5K penalty for purposeful, up to $1K for knowing, violation by custodian (preponderance of the evidence)
  • Good faith non-employee reporters and employee whistleblowers exempt from liability and discipline [610.028]
  • Custodian strongly encouraged, but not required, to provide online access to its records kept in electronic format

Destruction of Public Records

  • 109.210: No records shall be destroyed or disposed of unless state records commission or local records board first determines the records have no administrative, fiscal, research, or historical value; no records can be destroyed until they meet the minimum retention period

Whistleblower Score

Rank: 34/51

Missouri has very good coverage (29 of 33 possible points) with an average degree of usability (17 out of 33) and very good remedies (27 out of 33), plus the one bonus point awarded for employee notification of rights.

Read the full assessment here»

Phone: 202-265-7337

962 Wayne Avenue, Suite 610
Silver Spring, MD 20910-4453

Copyright 2001–2025 Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility

PEER is a 501(c)(3) organization
EIN: 93-1102740