Champaign County board receives FOIA and Open Meetings refresher; officials urged to use county email, forward requests

Andrew Mueller, an assistant state’s attorney and the FOIA officer for the Champaign County State’s Attorney’s Office, gave a presentation on the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Open Meetings Act (OMA) during a County Board study session on Jan. 28 in the Brookens Administrative Center in Urbana.

Mueller summarized key legal obligations and practical steps for board members and staff, including deadlines, exemptions, and special conditions that can apply to FOIA requests. “Under FOIA, all records in the custody or possession of a public body are presumed to be open to inspection or copying,” Mueller said, adding that “any public body that asserts that a record is exempt from disclosure has the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that it is exempt.”

The presentation reviewed several frequently used rules: board members who receive FOIA requests should promptly forward them to the County’s Director of Administration and the State’s Attorney’s Office so the county can meet statutory timelines; FOIA responses are due within five business days for most requests; a requester has 60 days after receiving a response to appeal to the Public Access Counselor (PAC) in the Illinois Attorney General’s office; and board members…