Requires all agencies to submit to the committee on open government a log of all freedom of information law requests for each year in which they received or have pending a request for records; requires the committee on open government to publish, on one webpage, all freedom of information law request logs it receives.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
8671
IN SENATE
February 28, 2024
___________
Introduced by Sen. HOYLMAN-SIGAL -- read twice and ordered printed, and
when printed to be committed to the Committee on Investigations and
Government Operations
AN ACT to amend the public officers law, in relation to requiring agen-
cies to report information about FOIL inquiries to the committee on
open government
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Section 90 of the public officers law is renumbered section
2 90-a and a new section 90 is added to read as follows:
3 § 90. FOIL request reporting. 1. All agencies subject to this article
4 shall, for each year in which they received or have pending a request
5 for records under this article, submit to the committee on open govern-
6 ment their log of all such freedom of information law requests. For the
7 purposes of this section, pending shall mean requests that remained open
8 during the twelve-month period, including those first submitted in prior
9 years. The freedom of information law request logs shall:
10 (a) cover a twelve-month range of dates as prescribed by the committee
11 on open government and shall include data regarding all requests
12 received or pending during that range of dates;
13 (b) be submitted on a schedule prescribed by the committee on open
14 government;
15 (c) be in a machine-readable, tabular spreadsheet format prescribed by
16 the committee on open government, including but not limited to the order
17 of the data fields included;
18 (d) be submitted in a method as prescribed by the committee on open
19 government, such as by electronic mail, web form, web portal, or other
20 method as prescribed by the committee;
21 (e) include data prescribed and defined by the committee on open
22 government, but at the minimum including:
23 (i) the name of the requestor;
24 (ii) the affiliation of the employer of the requestor with the agency,
25 if applicable;
26 (iii) the date of receipt of the request;
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD14610-01-4
S. 8671 2
1 (iv) the date of acknowledgment by the agency of the request;
2 (v) the date of the expected response time as provided in the acknowl-
3 edgment;
4 (vi) the number of extensions of time to respond to date;
5 (vii) the date of the final response or of the closure of the request,
6 if applicable;
7 (viii) whether the request was granted in whole; granted in part and
8 denied in part; or denied;
9 (ix) if the request was denied in whole or in part, a list of
10 exemptions cited in the final response, if applicable;
11 (x) if the request was denied in whole or in part, whether the agency
12 determined there were no responsive records;
13 (xi) the date an appeal of the final response was filed, or whether no
14 appeal was filed;
15 (xii) the status of any appeals, including whether the appeal was:
16 (A) not filed;
17 (B) filed and pending;
18 (C) filed and granted in whole;
19 (D) filed and granted in part and denied in part; or
20 (E) filed and denied;
21 (xiii) a list of exemptions cited in an appeal denial, if applicable;
22 (xiv) the amount, in dollars, of total fees collected from requestor;
23 (xv) how many documents were produced;
24 (xvi) how many pages were produced;
25 (xvii) whether any of the produced documents were redacted;
26 (xviii) whether the request was subject to a proceeding filed under
27 article seventy-eight of the civil practice law and rules, and if so:
28 (A) the result, including judgment for petitioner; judgment for
29 respondent; or settlement;
30 (B) the date of the final judgment, whether it be a final judgment or
31 stipulation of dismissal pursuant to a settlement;
32 (C) the amount of attorney fees assessed by the court to be paid by
33 the agency, if any; and
34 (D) whether the article seventy-eight judgment was appealed, and the
35 date of the appeal; and
36 (f) be published on the agency's website, if the agency has one.
37 2. By January first of each year, the committee on open government
38 shall publish, on one webpage, all freedom of information law request
39 logs it receives, in a machine-readable format such as a spreadsheet or
40 comma separated variable file, in addition to any other format it shall
41 determine. The committee shall additionally publish and maintain an
42 archive of such logs on data.ny.gov or such other successor website
43 maintained by, or on behalf of, the state, as deemed appropriate by the
44 office of information technology services under executive order 95 of
45 2013, or any successor agency or order.
46 3. The committee on open government shall at a minimum provide, in its
47 annual report required by section eighty-nine of this article, the total
48 number of FOIL logs submitted by agencies pursuant to this section, and
49 the committee shall further be authorized to analyze the data in the
50 freedom of information law request logs and use such data and analyses
51 thereof in such annual report or other reports or analyses.
52 § 2. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall
53 have become a law.
