State attorney briefs Levy County on public-records duties, redaction and fee practices

The state attorney for the Eighth Judicial Circuit told Levy County officials at a workshop that the default under Florida law is disclosure and that records created or received in connection with official business "belong to the citizens of the state of Florida." He urged county staff to treat public-records duties as a top-down responsibility and to document decisions about locating, redacting and preserving records.

The presenter summarized the statutory definition as covering "documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recordings, or other material, regardless of physical form" and said the correct starting point is to assume a record is public unless an exemption applies. He warned that while spoken words alone are not public records, recordings and most electronic material generally are.

Drawing on his office's experience, the state attorney outlined four broad requester categories: victims or witnesses whose needs are time-sensitive; law firms that make large, recurring requests; adversarial "bad actors" who test agencies for mistakes; and members of the press, who often…