HARRISBURG -- In Ohio, recordings of 911 calls are open to public inspection.

In Connecticut, residents can scrutinize public school teachers' disciplinary records.

In North Carolina, state employees' e-mail messages -- even those sent from home computers -- are considered open records if they pertain to public business.

In Pennsylvania, though, a weak Right-to-Know law has prevented disclosure of such things as the location of a proposed above-ground natural gas line, the salary of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, copies of preliminary school budgets, a list of dangerous intersections and the names of police officers involved in shootings.

Some lawmakers want to change that.

Gov. Ed Rendell is pressing for all records to be open unless disclosure would directly harm individuals or the commonwealth.

The House and Senate separately enacted rules, which expire at the end of 2008, requiring disclosure of employee salaries.

In the latest move toward more sustained change, the Senate State Government Committee held a hearing yesterday on proposed changes to the state's open records laws, but only three of the committee's 11 members showed up.

Chairman Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, and Sens. Michael Brubaker, R-Lancaster, and Michael Fulmer, R-Lancaster, heard testimony from public officials, newspaper industry officials, university leaders and others.

Those who testified agreed that residents are entitled to information about how tax dollars are spent, but were divided on what other records should be open to scrutiny.

Graham Spanier, president of Penn State University, and George E. Moore, counsel for Temple University, said that state-related universities already disclose their expenditures and should not be required to provide the much broader spectrum of records that government should disclose.

The University of Pittsburgh expressed similar sentiment in written testimony.

"Pitt and the other state-related universities are vastly different from a state agency in their formation, powers and duties, authority, operation and mission," wrote Paul A. Supowitz, vice chancellor for governmental relations.

Public disclosure of documents like contracts, research documents and donor lists could put universities at a competitive disadvantage, cause them to lose revenue from sponsorship agreements, harm employees whose salaries would be disclosed, chill testimony in disciplinary hearings and more, university officials said.

Supporters of Senate Bill 1, which would open more public records, said exclusions could be carved out to minimize harm to the universities, but Mr. Spanier said the list of exclusions would be long and cumbersome.

The bill also would create a clearinghouse for open records requests, impose a five-day time limit for agencies to respond to requests, subject the Legislature to the law for the first time and increase penalties for noncompliance.

The bill falls short of a similar proposal advocated by Mr. Rendell, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and others.

True open records law reform must include language that presumes government records are open to the public, testified Teri Henning, chief counsel for the newspaper association.

Senate Bill 1 does not change the presumption that records are closed unless the requester proves otherwise.

"Most state laws, and the federal Freedom of Information Act, begin with the presumption that records in the possession of agencies that relate to public business are public records," she said.

"Pennsylvania law starts from a very narrow place and then gets narrower."

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Chester, who sponsored the bill, said Ms. Henning is advocating a fundamental change that could open the state to litigation that would delay implementation.

Current law provides for the disclosure of accounts, vouchers, contracts, minutes, orders or decisions of agencies.