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New Mexico Municipal League tells council IPRA requests surged; recommends fees, staffing and longer deadlines
Summary
The New Mexico Municipal League told the Albuquerque City Council on April 7 that public-records requests have surged since 2020, with heavy increases in police and body-worn camera requests creating time-intensive processing demands for local governments.
Representatives of the New Mexico Municipal League on April 7 presented an evaluation of the stateInspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), telling the Albuquerque City Council that public-records demand and the administrative cost of compliance have increased sharply since 2020.
Rebecca Martinez, the Leagues policy and education manager, said the League examined more than 200,000 individual requests, surveyed 54 local governments and analyzed trends across states. The Leagues presentation identified rising volumes, major commercial requesters and growing resource strain for records custodians.
Findings presented to the council:
- Increasing request volumes: surveyed local governments reported more than a doubling in average monthly IPRA requests since 2020; some municipalities saw increases above 200 percent.
- Police and body-worn camera requests surged: requests for police records and body-worn camera footage rose by roughly 270 percent for the surveyed set, and such requests are especially labor intensive.
- Commercial requesters dominate in many jurisdictions: data brokers including LexisNexis represented a large share of requests (the League reported LexisNexis accounted for 15 percent of requests among surveyed local governments and over one-third in some cities).
- Resource and processing burden: the League described time-intensive review requirements (for example: 2to3 hours of staff review for every hour of body-worn camera footage) and difficulties in applying statutory exemptions consistently.
Recommendations and options: League staff urged cities to consider options used in other states to manage volume and cost, including fee schedules for commercial requests, standardized online intake forms, digitization to make more records available publicly, and longer statutory production windows.
Council questions and response: Councilors asked about best practices, fee models and reasonable production timelines. League staff said some states allow fees and longer response windows than New Mexicos 15-day standard; they suggested longer deadlines can improve quality and compliance while noting fees would not fully cover costs but could help staffing and digitalization investments.
Why this matters: council members said the city is experiencing heavier records demand and must balance transparency with staff capacity. The presentation framed IPRA administration as a citywide operational issue touching police, court records, and privacy-sensitive records.
Ending: League staff said they will follow up with the council and provide copies of the full report and trainings for records custodians. Councilors thanked the League for the analysis and asked staff to consider the Leagues recommendations during policy review and budget planning.
