VLCT warns municipalities are strained by rising public-records work, AI scraping and limited resources

Samantha Sheehan, municipal policy and advocacy specialist for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure committee on May 1 that Vermont municipalities face growing burdens responding to public-records requests and need more resources and training to manage data securely.

Sheehan, who said “we represent all 247 municipalities across the state, including the cities and towns that you live in and represent,” outlined how state public-records law requires municipalities to find, review and, where appropriate, redact records held in their custody and make them available for inspection or copying.

Sheehan told lawmakers that municipalities must apply exemptions such as the deliberative-process exemption and protections for student records, Social Security numbers and other personal data. She said some exemptions help prevent the release of draft ideas or negotiating positions that could harm a municipality in later contract discussions: “So someone has to sit there. They have to understand public records law.”

Committee members heard that the administrative cost of complying with requests can exceed the fees towns are allowed to charge and that many small or rural towns lack dedicated records staff. Sheehan described cases where public-records work falls to a town clerk, treasurer or volunteers, and said larger cities can involve senior staff and multiple attorneys to respond to a single request.

Sheehan described three recurring burdens municipalities report: repeated or harassing requests directed at a particular official; frequent, high-volume requests that can tie up staff; and a newer pattern she and local officials believe involves firms using AI tools to generate large numbers of records requests. Sheehan said municipalities have observed requests that appear to be produced by bots or automated systems, and that some towns believe the requests are being used to harvest construction bids and other public materials for private commercial modeling. She said these requests may come from anonymous addresses or from outside Vermont and must still be treated as valid public-records requests under state law.

The committee was told municipalities have some practices to proactively share data — for example, Burlington’s open-data program, in place since about 2014, which provides downloadable city data — but that most towns lack such portals. Sheehan said she is not aware of Vermont municipalities selling resident data and that most public data can be requested under state law in any case.

On technology and intergovernmental sharing, Sheehan said municipalities use a range of software and that some data-sharing agreements with state or federal agencies contain strict confidentiality protections. She also warned that law-enforcement and emergency-services records are governed by additional federal and state rules and typically require heightened safeguards.

Sheehan said the Vermont League of Cities and Towns is pursuing funding and program support to help towns with digitization, cybersecurity, policy development and training. She told the committee that while she does not see an immediate gap in the law, she believes policy makers should study future risks from automated or AI-driven requests and address the resource gap at the municipal level.

No committee motions or votes were taken during the presentation. The testimony closed with Sheehan saying VLCT would like to return to the committee and work further on workforce and resource solutions for municipalities.