‘WE HAVE BEEN INUNDATED’; WASHINGTON CO. OFFICIALS REPORT INFLUX OF OPEN RECORDS REQUESTS

  

Washington County departments are reporting a large increase in the number of open records request submissions, to the point where they may opt to start charging for them.

Human Resources Director Amber Skalka informed county commissioners during her department’s quarterly report on Tuesday that county staff has been processing many more public information requests than normal over the past six months.  She said the recent trends have led to a lot of time and energy dedicated to handling the requests.

County Attorney Renee Mueller said she manages similar numbers of requests from the Human Resources Department as she does from E911 and the sheriff’s office.  Skalka added that many of her requests pertain to employees who have been terminated, usually not active ones. 

The specific number of requests received by the county was not provided at the meeting.  Skalka told KWHI that they currently do not keep record of the amount of request submissions and have not done so in the past, but she would like to keep record of them in the future.

While Skalka acknowledged the importance of government transparency and said open records requests are critical for ensuring that, she is looking into implementing a fee schedule for public information requests to help offset the time spent on them.  She noted that she intends to ask for an additional staff member in her department during the next budget cycle.

The Brenham City Council moved last summer to adopt a fee schedule to produce records requests, with city officials at the time citing a similar uptick in requests received.