Bail Enforcement Agents (Florida Department of Financial Services)
| Submitted | April 25, 2017 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Curtis Waltman
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to Florida's Sunshine Law (Fla. Stat. secs. 119.01 to 119.15 (1995)), I hereby request the following records:
Records relating to bail enforcement Agents also known as BEA's, Bounty Hunters, bail agents, bail recovery agents, bail recovery agents, skip tracers, or fugitive recovery agents. An itemized list of the records I am requesting about BEA's follows:
-Any training material including syllabi, power point presentations, or any distributed reading material. Please conduct this portion of the search from 1/1/05 to the date this request was processed on.
-Any regulations, policies, guidelines, or any other rules made to limit or manage what a BEA can and cannot do.
-Use of force policies for BEA's.
-All complaints against any BEA licensed or permitted by this agency with the following date range: 1/1/05 to the date this request is processed on.
-Financial documentation concerning the gross income of the Bail Enforcement industry in the state. In addition or in the event the agency does not keep documentation about the overall finances going to Bail Enforcement, any documentation about billing, salary/payment range, or potential benefits are also requested.
-Number of injuries and fatalities reported per year from the Bail Enforcement industry from 1/1/05 to the date this request was processed.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I would request your response within ten (10) business days.
Sincerely,
Curtis Waltman
From: Atkinson, William
Dear Mr. Waltman,
This is to acknowledge receipt of your request for public records. Your request has been assigned tracking number 207410, as referenced above. We are reviewing your request to determine if the Department of Financial Services holds the records you requested. You will be advised if the Department holds those records or not.
If the records you have requested are available on-line, you will be advised of the web address where you may download those records at no charge.
If the Department holds the records you requested but statutorily-authorized fees apply, you will be contacted to inform you of the costs for providing the records and you will receive an invoice for those costs. Department personnel will not begin processing the requested records until the invoiced amount has been paid.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this matter, please feel free to contact the Public Records Unit.
Mitchell Atkinson
Government Operations Consultant I
Division of Agent and Agency Services
Florida Department of Financial Services
William.Atkinson@myfloridacfo.com<mailto:William.Atkinson@myfloridacfo.com>
From: Moore, Jon
Good Afternoon,
After fulfilling your request it was found the Department does not hold any records responsive to your original request. Should you have any questions feel free to reach back out.
All the Best,
Jon Moore
Acting Press Secretary
Office of Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater
Florida Department of Financial Services
(850) 413-2870 Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com<mailto:Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com>
Subscribe<http://www.myfloridacfo.com/PressOffice/Newsletter/> to Dollars & Sense, CFO Atwater's weekly newsletter
Please note that Florida has a broad public records law. Most written communications to or from state officials regarding state business are considered to be public records and will be made available to the public and the media upon request. Therefore, your e-mail message may be subject to public disclosure.
From: Moore, Jon
Good Afternoon,
Please disregard my previous email included below. There are records responsive to your request but I am currently in the process of determining how long it will take to review and redact those records.
I will be in contact with you in the days to come.
I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
All the best,
Jon Moore
Acting Press Secretary
Office of Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater
Florida Department of Financial Services
(850) 413-2870 Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com<mailto:Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com>
Subscribe<http://www.myfloridacfo.com/PressOffice/Newsletter/> to Dollars & Sense, CFO Atwater's weekly newsletter
Please note that Florida has a broad public records law. Most written communications to or from state officials regarding state business are considered to be public records and will be made available to the public and the media upon request. Therefore, your e-mail message may be subject to public disclosure.
From: Curtis Waltman
Good Afternoon!
No worries, thank you for letting me know! I look forward to it. Thank you for your work on my request, greatly appreciated.
Best,
Curtis Waltman
From: Moore, Jon
Good Morning,
Please find attached an invoice to fulfill your records request. Once we have received payment we will process your request as soon as possible as outlined by the estimated timeframe that is highlighted in the attached invoice.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Jon Moore
Acting Press Secretary
Office of Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater
Florida Department of Financial Services
(850) 413-2870 Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com<mailto:Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com>
Subscribe<http://www.myfloridacfo.com/PressOffice/Newsletter/> to Dollars & Sense, CFO Atwater's weekly newsletter
Please note that Florida has a broad public records law. Most written communications to or from state officials regarding state business are considered to be public records and will be made available to the public and the media upon request. Therefore, your e-mail message may be subject to public disclosure.
-
~WRD228
From: Curtis Waltman
Hi,
In the interest of lowering the cost and reducing the scope, could you tell me what portion of my request is driving that cost up so high? I would be very appreciative, thank you.
Sincerely,
Curtis Waltman
From: Moore, Jon
Good Afternoon,
Please find attached the invoice for your requested records. We have not heard a response from you in previous attempts to make contact. If I do not hear back from you after this attempt I will close this request and consider your previous request to be withdrawn.
Thank You,
Jon Moore
Acting Press Secretary
Office of Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis
Florida Department of Financial Services
(850) 413-2870 Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com<mailto:Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com>
DISCLAIMER: Please note that Florida has a broad public records law. Most written communications to or from state officials regarding state business are considered to be public records and will be made available to the public and the media upon request. Therefore, your e-mail message may be subject to public disclosure.
From: Curtis Waltman
Hi Mr. Moore,
I did email you after the last one. I will copy and paste the contents of that email here.
In the interest of lowering the cost and reducing the scope, could you tell me what portion of my request is driving that cost up so high? I would be very appreciative, thank you.
Sincerely,
Curtis Waltman
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on April 25, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Moore, Jon
Good Afternoon,
After reviewing your request with our records units, the issue we have identified is primarily the overall scope of the request. The large cost occurs because your request includes, essentially, all files from every complaint that we have on file for all bail bond agents. Without a specific timeframe, we are searching what would end up being all cases/complaints, ever. Also, because there are no statutes that state bail bond agent investigations are confidential if no action was ever taken, like we do with regular insurance agents, there was nothing we could cut down on to narrow the scope of the request. If you want to cut down on the costs, we would recommend you request only those investigations where an action was taken for a specific timeframe, within a year or two at most. While this would help lower the cost, we are not sure of how big of an impact this would have on the lowering of the cost because we still need to obtain, sort and review these documents for redaction of sensitive information that may be exempt from disclosure.
In essence, we need to narrow the time parameters for the search. I have highlighted the portion in your original request where our recommendations would be applied.
Best,
Jon Moore
Acting Press Secretary
Office of Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis
Florida Department of Financial Services
(850) 413-2870 Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com<mailto:Jon.Moore1@myfloridacfo.com>
DISCLAIMER: Please note that Florida has a broad public records law. Most written communications to or from state officials regarding state business are considered to be public records and will be made available to the public and the media upon request. Therefore, your e-mail message may be subject to public disclosure.
-
~WRD257
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