Iowa board advises prompt responses to records requests

The Iowa Public Info Board is advising information custodians to acknowledge public information requests “throughout the first few enterprise days of receipt,” and to offer data at the moment on doable charges and a timeline for producing the information.

The board accepted an advisory opinion on “Timeliness of responding to document requests” throughout an August 18 assembly, the place members additionally voted to not proceed with draft administrative guidelines on open information requests.

Representatives of presidency our bodies and a few state legislators had pushed again in opposition to the draft guidelines, launched in July. Specifically, some objected that the board lacked authority to situation a rule stating custodians “should acknowledge” receipt of information requests inside two enterprise days. (Iowa’s open information regulation, referred to as Chapter 22, units no such deadline.) Some public feedback additionally argued it will be unworkable to require governments to acknowledge requests obtained by means of social media.

The advisory seems to be an effort to influence authorities entities to be extra conscious of information requests, with out elevating questions concerning the data board’s authority.

Final month, govt director Margaret Johnson instructed members of the Iowa legislature’s Administrative Guidelines Evaluation Committee that her board has obtained an “rising variety of complaints” associated to requests that the federal government physique by no means acknowledged. (Bleeding Heartland writer Rachel Bruns recounted one such expertise with the Iowa Division of Public Well being, which ignored her request for months, till Bruns filed a criticism with the data board.)

The advisory notes that communication between custodians and people in search of information “is crucial” and “can simply scale back disagreements over timeliness, assessment/redaction, charges, and completeness […].”

A immediate preliminary acknowledgement from the lawful custodian is one of the simplest ways to provoke this communication. Inside the first few enterprise days of receipt of the document request, the lawful custodian ought to contact the requester to acknowledge receipt of the request, present data on doable charges, and supply a timeline for achievement of the document request.

The lawful custodian is predicted to make further contact within the occasion of a possible delay to debate doable methods to finish the document request in a well timed method.

The board additionally advises custodians to launch information “as they’re accessible,” until the individual in search of information has requested to obtain them all of sudden. (Many authorities our bodies have stonewalled requesters by withholding a big batch of paperwork on the grounds that they’re nonetheless compiling and reviewing further responsive information.)

The draft administrative guidelines had acknowledged that authorities our bodies “shall give a excessive precedence to fulfilling requests.” The brand new advisory opinion notes, “A authorities physique is predicted to prioritize the achievement of information requests by offering satisfactory sources, akin to employees and tools, to promptly compile and launch public information. This will likely embrace the common publication of information which might be of public curiosity on web sites.”

The advisory acknowledges that Iowa Code Chapter 22 “is silent as to the time for response to a information request.” How lengthy it takes to provide a document is dependent upon many elements, making it “very troublesome, and possibly unwise, to determine any laborious and quick goal requirements.”

The advisory cites the Iowa Supreme Court docket’s 2013 case referred to as Horsfield. The justices unanimously held that “information have to be offered promptly, until the dimensions or nature of the request makes that infeasible.” It additionally quotes an Iowa Lawyer Common Sunshine Opinion from August 2005: “Delay is rarely justified merely for the comfort of the federal government physique, however delay won’t violate the regulation whether it is in good religion or cheap.”

Transparency advocates together with this reporter had been alarmed by a passage within the data board’s draft administrative guidelines, which might have given authorities entities a brand new excuse (“unexpected circumstances”) for failing to offer information promptly. The advisory adopted on August 18 doesn’t include any such language.

Full textual content of advisory opinion the Iowa Public Info Board accepted on August 18, topic to correction of 1 typographical error:

Prime photograph: CD and directions offered to Laura Belin in response to a public information request to the Iowa Division of Administration.