State Auditor Dave Yost has released an overview of citations his office issued to Ohio public entities over public-records violations. And Ohio has some work to do. With 357 agencies and local governments cited in just one year, the General Assembly should act.

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The violations involve such basic matters as having a policy on records requests and getting training on public-records laws. The citations come from 4,088 routine audits released in 2016, covering periods that began as far back as 2011. Some entities had multiple audits released or multiple citations.

“Public records and transparency are not a matter of instinct,” Mr. Yost said in a statement. “It requires training, and that’s why it’s in the law.”

According to spokesman Beth Gianforcaro, both the auditor’s office and Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office provide the training. They’ll even go out to the agency that needs it — or an official can get the training online from Mr. DeWine’s office.

Lucas County was one of only seven Ohio counties in which no agency was cited — even though Toledo, several other municipalities, the University of Toledo, the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority, and other entities were audited.

Mr. Yost gives The Blade credit for its county’s performance: “I think that where you have an aggressive newspaper, it helps a lot with keeping government open and transparent.”

Other northwest Ohio counties, however, didn’t have such clean results.

Because the citations are for matters such as training and maintaining policies, they don’t necessarily correlate with performance on actual public-records requests.

But a failure to take three hours of training does suggest a failure to take the issue seriously. And if people don’t know the rules, or don’t have local policies, they may withhold information they’re supposed to release. Yet Mr. Yost said the only sanctions the law provides for noncompliance with public-records laws come in lawsuits over specific records requests.

So the General Assembly should create some incentive to make sure officials comply. For example, agencies that haven’t complied could lose some of their state funding.

Newspapers can take pride in fighting for the public’s right to know. But the General Assembly, elected by the public, must also fight for the public to be informed.

First Published April 6, 2017, 4:00 a.m.