Commissioners approve $2,500 retainer for Taft Law to draft records-request policy

Fulton County commissioners voted to hire Taft Law of Indianapolis on a not-to-exceed $2,500 retainer to help the county draft a consistent policy for handling FOIA/APRA records requests and to advise county staff on who should receive and process incoming requests.

The action followed more than an hour of discussion and public comment about delayed responses and confusing instructions for where to file requests. Brian, a commissioner who led the proposal, said the county had received “quite a few FOIA requests” recently and that his priority was transparency: “the biggest thing I want is transparency, and I want to do things right,” he said, arguing an external firm could create a durable procedure for future staff changes.

A resident who spoke during public comment said a request filed Jan. 30 had not been complied with and that a separate request filed Feb. 12 also had not received an update. “It’s been over a month that that hasn’t been complied with,” the resident said, urging clearer and timelier responses. County staff acknowledged confusion about which office — the prosecutor, the auditor or HR — should receive some requests and said the firm would help clarify intake and notification procedures.

A county staff member explained a separate technical reason for some delay in producing phone records: the forensic image tool used to extract phone data was not yet compatible with the phone’s most recent update, and the vendor’s software update typically takes two to three weeks. The staff member said waiting for a complete image preserves data integrity rather than manually extracting files.

At the end of the item, Brian made a motion “to retain Taft Law, not to exceed $2,500” to assist with the FOIA requests and policy development; the Chair seconded. The motion carried 2-0, with Commissioner Dave absent. Officials said they would post clarified instructions on the county website and email people with active requests to update them on the process once the firm was on retainer.

The meeting also included an attempt to renew a recording-services contract, but participants were told that item could not be considered because the meeting had been called only to address the FOIA matter. The commissioners recessed after handling the Taft Law retainer.