A rewritten policy at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville outlines a more structured response to requests for public records, with the university also for the first time asserting that it may charge for costs if "additional personnel" are needed to comply with a request.
The changes, announced Thursday, mark the first revisions since 1993 to the university policy. They follow a January revision to the UA System's public records policy.
The updates mostly follow recommendations from a UA task force put together in February -- five months after a former UA spokesman claimed in a state legislative hearing that the university had failed to follow the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
The Freedom of Information Act gives Arkansans access to public records and public meetings "with limited exceptions," according to the state attorney general's office.
UA spokesman Mark Rushing said Chancellor G. David Gearhart appointed the task force "to look into everything regarding FOI in terms of improved efficiency and any enhancements we might make."
The policy designates more freedom of information coordinators responsible for managing requests. Rushing serves as UA's campus coordinator for such requests, and university police and UA's athletic department have similar coordinators.
Requests from news outlets should be submitted to one of these three coordinators, while nonmedia requests should go to UA's campus coordinator or more than 20 other freedom of information coordinators identified by title in the policy.
Rushing said the old policy also stated that media should submit requests to a specific office. Overall, the policy revamp is part of an effort to educate university staff members about how to handle records requests and "to improve that internal process to make it as efficient as possible," Rushing said.
The task force in its April report noted that UA received at least 287 Freedom of Information Act requests over 15 months from January 2013 through this March. The report said 63 percent came from news media, 25 percent from business or professional entities and 12 percent from private individuals.
The group highlighted the time spent on processing such requests. In October, more than 50 employees spent 760 hours responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, though the report described the month as including "a couple of extensive media requests."
In mid-September, auditors released findings about a multimillion-dollar deficit in UA's main fundraising division. Also, the claim that Gearhart had ordered others to get rid of financial documents at a university meeting was made by former spokesman John Diamond when he spoke to state lawmakers at an audit hearing.
Arkansas public agencies can charge reproduction fees but generally not search or other fees to requesters of public records, according to the law.
Rushing said the university has not charged for personnel costs previously. However, if the university engages extra help to comply with a request, that could mean the requester will be charged under the new policy.
The policy states that "in the event it should become necessary to engage additional personnel to comply with a request, such costs may be charged," referring to costs associated with "searching for, retrieving, reviewing or copying records."
It goes on to state that "any unit" believing "additional assistance" is necessary should consult with the university's legal office.
Rushing clarified that "we would not charge for existing university staff that's simply coming from a different part of the institution," with the new policy referring to perhaps an outside contractor or temporary help from outside the university.
In 2003, then-Attorney General Mike Beebe issued an opinion that states: "In my opinion, the language may be interpreted to mean that personnel time associated with the task might be included in the copy fee if 'existing agency personnel' are not used due to the size of the copying request."
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel issued an opinion in 2009 that cited the 2003 opinion but also stated: "Without further legislative or judicial guidance, I cannot definitely opine that a custodian can employ contractors to respond to a voluminous FOIA request and justifiably charge the FOIA requester for the contractors' time. I agree in principle, however, with my predecessor's observations."
The updated UA policy doesn't specify what sort of requests might lead to such "additional assistance."
However, the task force's recommendation -- not fully adopted in the policy -- went on to describe when charging for personnel time should be considered.
"The Task Force believes that charging a requester for external assistance should be considered when a request is so voluminous that responding to the request will substantially interfere with the unit's ability to conduct other operations for a day or more," the group's report states.
Rushing, a task force member, described the day's worth of interruption as an "informal guideline" for when to consider additional assistance in complying with a records request.
"I think in updating the policy, we wanted to reflect that sentiment or that recommendation. I think when it comes down to an actual situation where that might occur, I think that would be a decision that would have to be made based on all of the known facts at that time," Rushing said.
He said that in his experience, "when a request is made for email among multiple individuals concerning multiple search words and phrases over a long time range, those are the types of requests that can result in extraordinary voluminous responses."
Rushing has been freedom of information campus coordinator since Feb. 6, holding the role informally for about five months before that.
Robert Steinbuch, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's W.H. Bowen School of Law, praised some of the policy changes.
"It shows some effort to improve the process of production of public documents by the university, and that's always a good thing, particularly when there have been troubles in the past about getting access to public documents," Steinbuch said.
He said he disagreed with the task force recommendation about when to consider charging personnel costs to the public, specifically the report's statement that responding to requests for public records can "interfere" with other work.
"The implication of that statement is responding to a FOIA request somehow is not part of the inherent responsibility of a government agency. It is," Steinbuch said.
The task force also recommended that the university continue exploring the idea of posting records "of broad interest" online, including records requested under the state's Freedom of Information Act.
"There are various ideas on how to do that and how to put it into action, but that is definitely still under consideration," Rushing said.
Metro on 07/11/2014