In order to make government more transparent, state law mandates cities comply with requests for public records. Obeying the law can be costly and time-consuming, putting some city business on hold.
“We make it a priority to have transparency and openness,” Sumner City Administrator Diane Supler said.
While the city strives to provide transparency, some requests prove overly burdensome, requiring hundreds of staff hours and costing thousands of dollars.
A request placed in the summer resulted in 13,000 pages being printed at a cost of $2,500. The pages haven’t been collected by the requester, who objects to the cost. The papers printed stem from a request for the e-mails of Steve Allsop and Cindi Hochstatter. The requested e-mails were generated during several years and approximately 24,000 e-mails were combed through.
Initially the requester had a broader request, but the city asked him to make it more specific, so as to lessen the research on the city’s part.
The law does not allow Sumner to recoup expenses, which is why the requester isn’t required to pay, despite the cost. Since the staff time required to search for requested material can’t be billed for, it adds to the cost.
“When the law was originally written, the law didn’t contemplate these situations,” Supler said.
Some requests require extra time; for example, if the city attorney must ensure there is no breach of attorney-client privilege, Supler said.
Supler said there have been large lawsuits in other cities for not providing all the documents requested. The city does not have to provide documents if they believe they are to be used for commercial purposes and Sumner has not been the target of any lawsuits regarding a lack of cooperation.
It is the hope of the city the law is improved to provide for a better way to maintain open government and avoid the excessive use of employee hours and tax dollars while fulfilling records requests.
”They’re costing the taxpayers money where we could be putting our resources to better use,” Supler said.
