Use PNRC – It is Here to Support You.
The Public Notice Resource Center is here to support your effort to retain public and legal notices in newspapers. Your donation helps PNRC track legislation and be a resource for your legislative efforts.
The PNRC Board is available to speak at your convention, reminding publishers about the best practices for public notices and staff an informational table. When a newspaper does not follow best practices, it can jeopardize notices for all.
PNRC is willing to discuss strategies for legislative efforts and help successfully identify legislative efforts in other states.
PNRC is funded by donations from state press associations and members of American Courts and Commercial Newspapers. Without the continued support PNRC would not be the resource for keeping notices public.
August 2025 Monthly Newsletter
PNRC supports state press associations.
The PNRC Board and staff are available as a resource to states that are supporting or opposing legislation that maintains public notices where they belong in either newspapers or its successor e-edition. PNRC will prepare Op-Eds, letters of support or give video testimony when requested.
Let us know when a public notice bill is introduced and how PNRC can support your efforts as the industry adapts to the changing world.
What’s Happening Around the Country?
July 2025 Monthly Newsletter
Proper Public Notice is Essential – Two examples that didn’t meet the test
Along with open meetings and freedom of information laws, public notice is an essential element of the three-legged stool of government transparency. The Attorney General of Kentucky and the State Auditor call into question the validity of tax and bond votes when appropriate public notice was not given.
KY attorney general says Fayette school board didn’t give public notice before tax vote
AG Coleman: Fayette County (KY) Schools Tax Hike is Unlawful
Office of the Attorney General
(June 4, 2025) – Attorney General Russell Coleman announced today the Fayette County Public Schools (FCPS) Board unlawfully attempted to raise taxes on Kentucky families. General Coleman released a formal Attorney General’s opinion that found the FCPS Board failed to meet the state statutory requirements to provide public notice before levying an occupational tax increase at its May 27, 2025 meeting.
June 2025 Monthly Newsletter
Breaking News
Oklahoma legislature increases state-set rate for legal notices, enacts reforms.
Oklahoma legislators voted to override the governor’s veto of House Bill 2167 – an OPA-sponsored legal notice bill – in the final hours of the 2025 legislative session. The legislation increased the state-set legal notice rates for the first time since 2005 and included other reforms for readability and accessibility of legal notices.
HB 2167 passed the House on March 25 by an 83-6 vote. On April 28, the bill passed the Senate 36-6. On May 5, the governor vetoed the legislation, writing a confusing and surprising veto message, even though the bill reached his desk with veto-proof vote majorities in both the House and Senate.
OP-ED: Legal Notices under attack – again (HB 1080)
Whitesboro News-Record (TX) April 03, 2025, by Austin Lewter
To anyone who says, “Newspapers are dead,” I say, “Sit at my desk the Monday after the post office sends a bundle of newspapers to Fort Worth by mistake.”
I say, “Answer my phone when someone has a neighbor whose dog ate their paper.”
I say, “Do my job when someone forgot to renew their subscription on time and, all of a sudden, realized they didn’t get their paper that week.”
The latter two incidents are far more common than the former, but they all occur from time to time. When they do, I field calls from frustrated readers looking for their paper.
May 2025 Monthly Newsletter
Thank you to Richard Karpel for his dedication to protecting public notices.
Best Wishes on his retirement.
Jim Tarrant and Lisa McGraw look forward to working collaboratively with you to
- expand accessibility to public notices for the public while
- maintain the role of trusted local newspapers, as a disinterested, third-party or
- evolve to the digital descendant of a printed newspaper
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association supports bill to update Public Notice
State-agency website bills dead in three states
Legislation requiring state agencies to publish official notice on their websites was killed last week in committees in Indiana, Georgia and West Virginia.
After passing the House last month by a comfortable margin, Indiana HB-1312 was defeated in a Senate committee by a vote of 8-2. The bill allowed every public notice in the state to eventually be posted on a state-agency website. It was rejected a week after the Hoosier State Press Association (HSPA) organized a statehouse rally at which “more than 100 Indiana publishers, editors, reporters and subscribers gathered outside the Senate chambers” to oppose the bill, according to Johnston County’s Daily Journal.
Press association websites essential for survival of newspaper notice
Legislation designed to move all official notice to a single state-agency website has been introduced this year in Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, New Jersey and West Virginia. The bills in Indiana, Georgia and West Virginia are already dead (see story above) and those in Idaho and New Jersey appear unlikely to pass.
But these types of bills probably pose the most serious long-term threat facing newspaper notice. They are fully subsidized by taxpayers and force newspapers to compete with the most well-resourced organization in every state: The executive branch of the state government.
PNRC and ACCN announce management change
The boards of directors of the Public Notice Resource Center (PNRC) and American Court and Commercial Newspapers (ACCN) announced last month that they have selected the Michigan Press Association (MPA) to manage the joint affairs of the two groups when the contract with their current management company ends on April 2.
PNRC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes government and corporate transparency through research and education focused on how to provide effective official notice to the public. It is the only national organization that monitors and analyzes public notice legislation in all 50 states. ACCN is a trade association that represents local newspapers that report on and provide services to the legal and business communities in which they operate.
Three states edge closer to government website notice
Legislation that would move all or most public notice in three states to government websites passed significant milestones last month. Bills in Indiana and Kentucky were approved by the Houses of Representatives in those states by comfortable margins, while another in Idaho’s lower chamber barely squeaked by.
The most significant threat to newspaper notice appears to be the assault launched in Indiana, where HB-1312 would eventually allow all public and private notices in the state to be posted on a website established by the Indiana Office of Technology (IOT). It passed the House on Feb. 18 by a 57-36 vote.