Public Records Request Log - Iowa Department of Human Services
It is a clone of this request.
| Submitted | May 7, 2015 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Erik Peterson
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Iowa Open Records Law (Code Chapter 22), I hereby request the following records:
A log of public records requests submitted to the Department of Human Services that lists the date of request, the requester's name, the requester's organizational affiliation, a description of the request and the date the request was filled. Ideally I would like this information for the period from 2004 to the present.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, and is made in the process of academic research and not for commercial usage.
In the event that fees cannot be waived, 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.
Sincerely,
Erik Peterson
PhD Candidate
Department of Political Science
Stanford University
From: McCoy, Amy A
Dear Mr. Peterson:
The Iowa Department of Human Services does not track public records requests in the manner in which you have requested, and is not required to under Iowa’s open records law. To compile information in the manner in which you have requested would require extensive administrative hours and a fee under the agency’s open records policy. The Department generally fulfills requests for existing documents within 10 business days.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.
Sincerely,
Amy Lorentzen McCoy
Public Information Officer
Iowa Department of Human Services
amccoy@dhs.state.ia.us<mailto:amccoy@dhs.state.ia.us>
515-281-4848 (w)
515-559-7326 (c)
From: Erik Peterson
Thank you for your response.
Since it would require extensive effort to compile the requests in your office, would it be possible for you to send me copies of the all the requests the office has received instead? I could then compile the information on my own time. This approach has worked for departments in several other states that did not maintain a log and expressed similar concerns about the time it would take to compile one.
Also, if that approach does not work, could you provide me with a quote on the cost for compiling this information? I do have some research funding available to cover those sorts of costs.
Thank you for your time,
Erik Peterson
Graduate Student
Department of Political Science
Stanford University
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 May 7, 2015. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thank you for your help.
From: McCoy, Amy A
Mr. Peterson,
My apologies for the delay. As I noted before, this is not how we track requests and it would require significant administrative work to search back through records to compile information in the manner in which you have requested.
Staff from across Iowa’s 99 counties have contact with the public and fulfill requests for basic public information, and they do not have requirements for logging requests. Open records requests can be made and fulfilled in person at field offices, or by telephone, fax, email and U.S. Mail. While there are requirements for fulfilling open records requests, there are no requirements under the law to track in a specific manner the requests or what is provided. The public information officer also does not log every request. Some requests are answered in moments with information readily available, others can takes weeks to run special data reports or compile large amount of documents. Most requests for existing documents and data are fulfilled within business 10 days and at no cost.
To compile some of the larger requests that the public information officer has received over the past 5 years would require a review of 680 emails at an estimated fee of $629.33 (680 x 2 minutes each = 22.6 hours – first 3 hours free x $32 per hour administrative fee = $629.33). Again, this list would not be comprehensive of all requests received and/or fulfilled by the Iowa Department of Human Services. I can use search terms to narrow this request if there are specific areas you are interested in such as “Medicaid” “Child Support” or “Family Investment Program.”
Sincerely,
Amy Lorentzen McCoy
Public Information Officer
Iowa Department of Human Services
amccoy@dhs.state.ia.us<mailto:amccoy@dhs.state.ia.us<mailto:amccoy@dhs.state.ia.us%3cmailto:amccoy@dhs.state.ia.us>>
515-281-4848 (w)
515-559-7326 (c)
From: Erik Peterson
Thanks for your response and for checking on the fees.
Those fees are outside of my price range so I won't be submitting a further request.
Thank you for your time,
Erik
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