2017 FOIA logs: Labor (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)
| Tracking # |
848276 |
| Multi Request | 2017 FOIA logs: Labor |
| Submitted | Jan. 5, 2018 |
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Communications
From: Russ Kick
To Whom It May Concern:
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:
your agency's FOIA request log covering 2017, which includes a field showing the subject of each request and a field for the final disposition.
Further, I request that this document be sent in any digital formats in which it exists (such as PDF and Excel). Under the terms of the E-FOIA Amendments of 1996, Section 5, if a document exists in electronic format, it must be released in that format upon request.
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 look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Russ Kick
From: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Mr. Kick,
We have received the attached FOIA request from you and assigned it SIMS 848276.
We consider you an "other" for fees and are estimating FOIA fees of up to $105.00 to process this request as it will require DOL programmers to create a FOIA log from our tracking system.
Please acknowledge and agree to this fee estimate and we will begin processing your request.
Chris
Christopher Durso, Esq.
U.S. Department of Labor
National Office FOIA Coordinator
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
200 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Rm N-3647
Washington, DC 20210
202/693-2009
This message may contain information that is privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Do not disclose without consulting with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. If you think you received this-email in error, please notify the sender immediately.
From: Russ Kick
Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. Since I've never been charged for a FOIA log by any agency, I have a couple of questions:
1) SIMS-FOIA doesn't have a built-in way for users to export a list of requests? Since DOL has to report various FOIA statistics annually and quarterly to the Justice Department's OIP, it would seem that such "overview" functions would be part of the system.
2) What's the hourly rate for a programmer? How much time does $105 cover?
--Russ Kick
From: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Good morning Kirk,
The short answer to your first question is yes. SIMS FOIA is an old tracking system that combines FOIA requests and Privacy Act requests. The system is owned by our Office of the Solicitor, not OSHA. While we can run limited reports (such as data reported to DOJ) we cannot extract a total agency FOIA Log at the agency level. Thus, I must request our IT personnel to program such a log in the system. The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management has informed me in other matters that it costs $105.00 per hour for our programmer's time. My cost estimate to you was for three hours of time for them to conduct the search. The first two hours are free. If the time used was less than three hours the cost to you would drop and if less than two hours was used there would be no charge.
Other than IT creating a log there are two other options I can offer you.
My office maintains a FOIA log of requester, date received and subject requested for emailed FOIA requests (roughly 25% of the OSHA total). I can prepare this data for 2017 and there would be no charge.
In a prior FOIA request we prepared an OSHA FOIA log that included January through April 2017. If you are interested in this data I also can have it for at no charge.
Chris
Christopher Durso, Esq.
U.S. Department of Labor
National Office FOIA Coordinator
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
200 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Rm N-3647
Washington, DC 20210
202/693-2009
This message may contain information that is privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Do not disclose without consulting with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. If you think you received this-email in error, please notify the sender immediately.
From: Russ Kick
Thank you for explaining further and giving me other options. I would like to modify my request to receive only the pre-processed Jan-April 2017 log and the log of emailed requests.
--Russ
From: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Good afternoon Mr. Kick,
Please find attached OSHA's response to your January5, 2018, Freedom of Information Act request, as amended.
Chris
Christopher Durso, Esq.
U.S. Department of Labor
National Office FOIA Coordinator
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
200 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Rm N-3647
Washington, DC 20210
202/693-2009
This message may contain information that is privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Do not disclose without consulting with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. If you think you received this-email in error, please notify the sender immediately.
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