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City FOIL officer says backlog and document-preparation cost drive some delays; council presses for transparency
Summary
Troy's FOIL officer told the law committee the city acknowledges a heavy FOIL volume, that time extensions and limited staff sometimes make large requests costly to prepare, and that appeals go to corporation counsel; councilors pressed on 'diligent search' standards, charges for preparation, and the possibility of periodic compliance reporting.
Alex Horton, the city’s records access/FOIL officer, briefed the law committee on the mechanics of Troy’s FOIL process: request acknowledgment via the GovQA portal, a five-day initial response window, the ability to request time extensions, and a ten-day appeal period to corporation counsel.
Horton acknowledged a high volume of requests and said the administration sometimes charges for the time needed to prepare voluminous or labor-intensive records — limited to the hourly cost of the lowest-paid qualified staff who can prepare the records — citing statutory guidance and case law uncertainty about what "preparation" entails. Horton said that, in practice, troves of records sometimes require substantial departmental staff time and, occasionally, a formal denial on exemption grounds after a reasonable search.
Council members probed what constitutes a "diligent search," whether paper walk-in requests are logged into the portal, FOIL officer training, disciplinary mechanisms for failures to comply, and whether the administration could produce periodic FOIL compliance reports. Horton said many requests are electronic but that some files remain paper or stored in noncentralized systems and that a modest staffing increase would materially reduce delays.
The committee did not take legislative action but urged administration follow-up on staffing, training, and possible periodic reporting to council on FOIL performance.
