Local officials weigh in on new FOIA bill
By CARRIE FRILLMAN
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cfrillman@daily-chronicle.com
Now that a rewrite of the state’s Freedom of Information Act has joined a stack of bills awaiting signature on the governor’s desk, local officials are weighing in on the effects it will have if it becomes law.
Senate Bill 189 passed through the Senate on May 28 with a vote of 58-1. The new bill – also approved overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives – creates a permanent public access counselor position in the Attorney General’s Office, imposes hefty civil fines for non-compliance, reduces response time on requests, and tightens exemptions.
State Rep. Robert Pritchard, R-Hinckley, said the bill was approved because legislators realized that more records should be accessible.
“Former Gov. [Rod] Blagojevich represented the epitome of removing citizens’ right to know and concealing important documents from the public,” he said. “Fundamentally, citizens have the right to know and we need to make records available to them.”
But some local government officials, including Cortland Town Clerk Cheryl Aldis, said they anticipate the revisions will cause hang-ups for small public bodies.
“I don’t think it’s positive,” Aldis said. “But it will be what it will be and we will do what we will do, assuming it gets signed. ... There are a multitude of things wrong with it.”
Cara Smith, Illinois Attorney General deputy chief of staff, helped negotiate the bill. She said the state was mindful of small public entities when considering the changes and ensured that the attorney general’s office will act as a resource if the bill is signed.
“It’s not as though we are all the sudden imposing a FOIA law on the state,” Smith said. “We’ve had one since 1884. Certainly, there are greater consequences for public bodies that don’t comply, but if you’re a public body that is committed to complying with the FOIA, we’ve created plenty of processes and plenty of checks and balances that shouldn’t be burdensome.”
The possibility that more documents will become publicly available raises concerns for DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott, who handles his office’s FOIA requests. Laws that protect victims’ confidentiality and guard developments in ongoing investigations are in place, and he feels many documents should remain off-limits to the public.
“When it comes to law enforcement investigations and things of that nature, I think it’s a disservice, not only to law enforcement in many ways, but to victims as well as defendants of crimes,” Scott said. “There is a lot more information from police reports that is going to be eligible for release.”
For example, Scott said, statements in police reports may be inaccurate but the public may draw the wrong conclusions about what is fact if the report is open, he said. Investigators, on the other hand, know the information is inaccurate and document the reports as part of an investigation.
Concerns are valid, especially for a law enforcement agency, Smith said. For that reason, all exemptions that protect confidential information and ongoing investigations remain in tact in the FOIA rewrite. Also, commercial companies – like law firms seeking crime or accident reports to identify possible clients – will be required to comply with a specific process when sending FOIA requests.
“While we tightened the time frame for responding from noncommercial requests and citizens, we lengthened and created a separate process for commercial requests,” Smith said. “We’ve created a whole separate track for them with a different set of requests.”
Scott also voiced concerns about a shortened time frame for complying with FOIA requests, because it is a process that involves many steps and usually means he has to consult with other offices.
“It’s not like you can just rubber stamp everything that comes in,” he said. “You have to make sure you’re not violating someone else’s rules.”
Complying with a FOIA request can get tricky if the information being sought is not readily accessible, local officials said. But the new bill still includes the option for public bodies to request a time extension when information is not at an employee’s fingertips.
A number of FOIA requests have come through the City of DeKalb’s office during the four weeks that former alderman Steve Kapitan has served as city clerk, he said, but luckily, none of them have posed a problem.
“Ultimately, if there were more complicated ones that involved more search, we could always have an extension,” Kapitan said. “Overall I think its a good thing, and with that extension, I think the time limit reduction will be reasonable. But, I do suspect that because of the time limit reductions, there may be additional or more extension requests as a result.”
Questions and concerns are not uncommon with change, Smith said, but she believes the new bill will prove positive.
If it becomes law, training will be available through the attorney general’s office and the public will be educated.
“When you peel away the complaints, there’s always anxiety when you have a new law, particularly one that is tremendously different than the one you’ve been complying with,” Smith said. “We recognize the change is difficult, but we will be a resource.”
FOIA bill at a glance
• Creates an easy process for submitting FOIA requests and requires that public bodies designate trained FOIA officers to ensure proper responses.
• Shortens the initial time to respond to a FOIA request from 7 to 5 business days and the time allowed in an extension from 7 to 5 business days.
• Codifies the Public Access Counselor within the Attorney General’s Office with the authority to review and determine whether documents should have been disclosed under FOIA or whether a public body violated the Open Meetings Act. The PAC will have subpoena power.
• Provides the first 50 pages for black and white, letter or legal sized copies are free and caps the charge for the remaining black and white, letter/legal sized pages at 15 cents per page.
• Allows courts to impose civil penalties between $2,500 and $5,000 against public bodies that willfully and intentionally fail to comply with the law or otherwise act in bad faith.
Source: Illinois Press Association
Read the bill
Go to www.ilga.gov. In the window on the left, type in SB189. The next page contains links to sponsors, votes and the text of the bill.
