State Sen. John Kefalas says he hopes that an amendment he plans to introduce in committee Wednesday will take care of the bulk of the privacy concerns raised over legislation he’s sponsoring that would require government agencies to produce public records in searchable digital formats.

“I happen to be a person of faith,” the Fort Collins Democrat told reporters Tuesday. “Therefore, I’m cautiously optimistic.”

Senate Bill 40, an attempt to modernize the Colorado Open Records Act, has been bumped from the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee’s schedule twice since early February – “these interesting dramas that have unfolded,” Kefalas said Tuesday – in order to allow more time for lawmakers, officials and public-information advocates to work out acceptable compromises, and Kefalas said on the eve of its scheduled Wednesday hearing that they’re most of the way there.

“The various delays that we’ve had on the hearings – I think it’s fair for me to say I’ve been very surprised, and there’s an element of disappointment. However, the flip side of that, in all honesty, is that it’s given us more time to work through this,” Kefalas said.

“There are still some outstanding issues, but if we can get through State Affairs (on Wednesday), we’ll have time to get to those issues,” he added.

An amendment he plans to introduce at the hearing “reflects the discussions that get us 80 percent across the finish line,” Kefalas said. While the remaining 20 percent of the concerns are unresolved, he said he’s hopeful the committee will agree to “set those issues aside” and move the bill ahead to give lawmakers and stakeholders a chance to continue working toward solutions agreeable to all.

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t have any illusions that we’re going to slam dunk this tomorrow, but we have worked pretty hard on this thing, and we’ve come to a good place, and with other key issues, I believe we can set those aside and, if we get out of committee, we’ll have the opportunity to work on those.”

A similar bill sponsored last year by Kefalas died in the same Senate committee amid many of the same concerns. Since then, an interim group organized by Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams – the Republican opposed last year’s version but is on board with the legislation this year – has been meeting to address worries about identity theft, cyber crime and other privacy concerns raised by the bill’s opponents and skeptics.

“A lot of people thought [last year’s] bill was totally unworkable, including our office,” Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert told The Colorado Statesman in February. “That’s why we worked so hard over the summer and fall to help craft one that addressed a variety of concerns.”

The bill, sponsored by Kefalas and state Rep. Dan Pabon, D-Denver, and co-sponsored by state Sen. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, is aimed at making public data available in usable, searchable formats, instead of as unwieldy printed documents or PDFs, as some government agencies provide in response to CORA requests.

“What this bill has always been about, in my view, is not about changing the parameters of CORA – what is available to the public and what is not – but it’s about that last step,” Kafalas said. “We’re talking about digital files, electronic files, databases, spreadsheets. With the proper protections, that information should be made available to the citizens, to the press, so that we can hold government accountable, so that we can ensure government is transparent, and certainly so that we can encourage government to be as efficient as possible.”

It’s those proper protections that have been vexing lawmakers and officials involved in shaping the legislation.

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, a Republican, has proposed allowing government agencies to withhold “any personal identifying information,” including names, addresses and phone numbers, for anyone who isn’t a public employee, The Denver Post reported Tuesday night.

Public information advocates are crying foul over the possibility, while Kefalas suggested Tuesday that the attorney general’s concerns are among those he hopes to address if the committee moves the bill ahead.

“We have to make sure we’re protecting not just state employees but, certainly, the citizenry against identity theft and those kind of things,” he said. “That’s been raised by the AG’s office. At the same time, we’re not trying to change the parameters of what’s disclosable under CORA. It’s a very delicate balancing act.”

At press time Senate Bill 40 was the second item on the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee agenda. The committee is scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the state Capitol.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com