Amendment #155 to H4100

Searchable database for Public Charities

Representatives Jones of North Reading, Peterson of Grafton, Hill of Ipswich, Poirier of North Attleborough, deMacedo of Plymouth, Adams of Andover, Barrows of Mansfield, Bastien of Gardner, Beaton of Shrewsbury, Boldyga of Southwick, D'Emilia of Bridgewater, Diehl of Whitman, Durant of Spencer, Fattman of Sutton, Ferguson of Holden, Frost of Auburn, Gifford of Wareham, Harrington of Groton, Howitt of Seekonk, Humason of Westfield, Hunt of Sandwich, Kuros of Uxbridge, Levy of Marlborough, Lombardo of Billerica, Lyons of Andover, O'Connell of Taunton, Orrall of Lakeville, Ross of Attleboro, Smola of Palmer, Vieira of Falmouth, Webster of Pembroke, Winslow of Norfolk and Wong of Saugus moves to amend the bill by inserting, after section xx, the following section:—

“SECTION XX. Chapter 12 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2010 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting after section 8M the following section:—

Section 8M ½. The director shall develop and operate a searchable website, as defined in section 14C of chapter 7, accessible by the public at no cost.  The website shall allow users to access all registration statements, annual reports, and all other information required to be filed under sections 8 to 8M, inclusive.

(a) Users shall be able to search by field in a single search, aggregate the data, download information yielded by a search and, where possible, contain graphical representations of the data.

(b)  The searchable website shall include and retain information for each fiscal year for not less than 10 fiscal years.

(c)  The director shall update the searchable website as new data becomes available.

(d) This section shall not be construed to require the disclosure of: (i) information that is confidential under state or federal law; (ii) payments received by an individual or entity as interest paid by the issuer of any bonds or other public debt.

(e) The director shall not be considered in compliance with this section if the data required for the searchable website is not available in a searchable and aggregate manner or if the public is redirected by the searchable website to other government websites, unless each of those websites complies with the requirements of this section.”.