Gilbert council reviews rising public‑records workload, costs and legal limits

Town Clerk Chiavelli Herrera and Town Attorney Chris Payne told the Gilbert Town Council on an Oct. study session that the town is completing most public‑records requests but is seeing rising volume, substantial manual review time and limited authority to recover costs under Arizona law.

“It often causes confusion when people say FOIA,” Chiavelli Herrera said, explaining that Gilbert is governed by Arizona Public Records Law and not the federal Freedom of Information Act. She told the council the town uses a commercial case‑management platform, described in the presentation as JustFOIA, to track requests and noted retention, redaction and confidentiality obligations under state law.

Why it matters: Council members raised cost and operational concerns after presenters said some single requests require dozens of staff hours to review and redact records. Council members pressed staff on whether procedural or legislative changes could curb repetitive or overbroad requests that they said are straining personnel and budget resources.

Herrera and Payne described the typical workflow for a records request: intake (by email, phone, in person or via the platform), routing to relevant departments, IT searches for emails or other electronic records, manual review for…