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DuPage County committee approves contract for FOIA records‑request tracking tool
Summary
The DuPage County Technology Committee approved a contract recommendation to adopt a records‑request tracking solution (listed as TE‑P00005‑26) to centralize FOIA intake, deadline alerts, redaction workflows and optional payment processing; staff said implementation should take 10–12 weeks and the tool will be subscription based.
The DuPage County Technology Committee voted to approve a contract recommendation for a records‑request tracking solution intended to automate intake, tracking, redaction and communications for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
IT staff told the committee the system will consolidate roughly 80 FOIA officers across departments and elected‑official offices into a single workflow dashboard that sends deadline alerts to responsible staff and to the state's attorney's office, offers a public portal so requesters can track submissions, supports AI‑assisted document redaction and allows online payment processing when fees apply. "This is going to save the county so much time and it's going to get the information out so much faster and efficiently to people that are requesting it," the IT department representative said.
Connor, the project manager who led vendor demos and selection, said he has worked on automating FOIA processes since 2018 and described rising request volume in recent years. "In 2019 we got about 50 requests in my department; I'm on pace for almost 400 this year," Connor said, arguing that a unified system would reduce duplicate work, cut training burdens when staff turnover occurs and improve compliance with response deadlines.
Auditor White asked whether the county could require requesters to use the portal; IT staff said the county cannot mandate portal use and that paper, fax and email submissions can still be entered into the system by staff. The vendor quoted an implementation timeline of about 10–12 weeks; staff said the solution is subscription‑based and estimated ongoing costs in the low tens of thousands per year (transcript records an approximate figure of $25,000/year).
The item (agenda TE‑P00005‑26, listed to Just Foya Inc. in the agenda text) was moved, seconded and approved by voice vote. The motion description and vote are recorded in the committee minutes and the contract will proceed to the next administrative steps for finalization. The agenda lists a contract total amount, but the number in the audio transcript was garbled and is not clearly recorded here.
