Residents and commissioners press county to publish records, track costs and consider a records custodian

Public commenters and multiple commissioners at the Loudon County Commission workshop on Oct. 20 urged the county to put more documents online, clarify the public-records process and measure how much staff time the county spends responding to requests.

Speakers said routinely available information — enrollment, meeting materials and routine budget documents — is difficult to find on the county website and that residents resort to formal records requests when they cannot locate items themselves. “If you all would put everything on the website, then you would have a lot of records requests,” said JC Ackman during the public-comment period.

The issue drew follow-up from commissioners. Commissioner Gary Whitfield asked staff to begin tracking how much time employees spend fulfilling records requests and to explore options to post more material electronically. “I do think we need to explore getting information electronically on the website,” Whitfield said, and suggested the county quantify the cost of staff time to respond to requests.

Pat Hunter, a resident who said she files monthly records requests, detailed recent attorney-fee figures she obtained and linked them to the county’s transparency concerns. Hunter said she found legal spending rose from about $203,023.24 to a new budgeted total of $490,000 and argued the county should make supporting documents more accessible so residents can follow spending without repeated records requests.

County staff and counsel described practical limits. Jim Jenkins explained the difference between document inspections and formal requests, saying inspection requests typically do not require a form while requests for copies do. “It’s not that simple,” Jenkins said, noting some requests demand staff time to compile or do not map to an existing document.

Commissioners and some members of the public discussed potential responses: require departments to post commonly requested documents, create a centralized process that allows departments to report time spent on requests, and consider a full-time records coordinator. Commissioners estimated a records-custodian position would cost in the range of the county’s typical new-employee package — roughly $70,000 per year including benefits — though no formal staffing decision or budget change was proposed at the workshop.

Officials also said the county has not historically tracked the number of public-record requests centrally and that some requests are made repeatedly by a small number of frequent requesters. Commissioners asked staff to compile counts and time estimates and to return with recommendations. No vote or formal direction was recorded at the workshop.

The discussion is scheduled to continue at regular commission meetings; some commissioners asked staff to bring potential solutions or a scope-of-work for a records-tracking trial to the Nov. 3 meeting.