Two subcommittees of the Freedom of Information Advisory Council were formed at the June 2, 2003, council meeting.

One, made up of council members Tom Moncure and John Edwards, was to explore the possibility of bringing the Sexually Violent Predators Commitment Review Committee back within the purview of FOIA. Legislation from 2003 wholly exempted the committee from FOIA, rather than exempting certain types of records kept or meetings held by the committee. Only a very small handful of public entities are completely exempt from FOIA, such as petit and grand juries, and the Virginia State Crime Commission.

At the Aug. 14 subcommittee, representatives from the Department of Corrections explained how the seven-member committee makes recommendations to the Attorney General on whether inmates convicted of sexually violent crimes should be released or diverted to civil commitment programs when their sentence ends. The advisory council subcommittee agreed with the DOC representatives that certain information central to this process should remain confidential, namely information that identifies victims, and the in-depth mental health assessments of the inmates.
The subcommittee voted to recommend exemptions for both kinds of information, while also revoking the total exemption for the commitment review committee. A draft of the proposed legislation was unanimously adopted by the full FOI council at its Dec. 1 meeting.

A second subcommittee, consisting of Moncure and council member Bill Axselle, met Aug. 27 to discuss reorganizing §2.2-3705, the record exemptions section of the FOI Act. The motivation for creating the subcommittee is that the current layout of the 87 exemptions for public records is unwieldy. Also, bills introduced by the General Assembly to modify, add or delete an exemption must include the full text of the targeted statute, that is, the whole of §2.2-3705. As a practical matter, a reorganization would make it easier to identify which exemptions applied and would obviate the need to reprint all 87 exemptions in a revision.

The subcommittee, which was also attended by council members Roger Wiley and Edwards, as well as the Coalition and representatives from local government and press, agreed to break up the exemptions into eight new sections:

• §2.2-3705.1. Exclusions to application of chapter; exclusions of general application to public bodies (written legal advice, contract negotiations, etc., shared by all public bodies).
• §2.2-3705.2. Exclusions to application of chapter; public safety records (terrorism, school safety audits, victims of crime, etc.).
• §2.2-3705.3. Exclusions to application of chapter; administrative investigations records (investigations related to license applications, fraud, waste and abuse, risk management claims, EEOC, etc.).
• §2.2-3705.4. Exclusions to application of chapter; educational records and certain records of educational institutions (scholastic records, records of teaching hospitals, etc.).
• §2.2-3705.5. Exclusions to application of chapter; health and social services records (medical and mental health records, records related to recipients of social services, etc.).
• §2.2-3705.6. Exclusions to application of chapter; proprietary records and trade secrets (self-explanatory).
• §2.2-3705.7. Exclusions to application of chapter; records of specific public bodies and certain other limited exemptions.
• §2.2-3705.8. Limitation on record exclusions (salary information about public employees is open and access to consultants' reports).

The full FOI council unanimously adopted the proposed draft, though Edwards, also a Coalition board member, expressed his concern over what substantive changes the General Assembly might try to introduce once the bill is filed, even though the reorganization is intended to be purely a technical fix. As suggested by Wiley, the council's executive director, Maria Everett, will include the intent of the reorganization in the council's annual report.