FOIA requests: intake to release and retention

Interviewer: Quick note before we start — I'm recording this, and I've got Sapeum running alongside, mapping the process flow live on screen as you talk me through it. We're just capturing how a public-records request moves today. That work for you?

Officer: Yeah, that's fine. Where do I start?

Interviewer: Right at the top — what kicks one of these off?

Officer: A request comes in from a member of the public — mostly email, some mailed letters, the occasional walk-in. First thing I do is log it — open a record, assign a tracking number, write down the date received. That date matters, it's what the clock runs off.

Interviewer: What clock?

Officer: The statutory one. Once it's in hand we're on a deadline — for us, twenty business days. There are extensions for huge volume or off-site records, but I have to notify the requester in writing if I invoke one. The second it's logged, the meter's running.

Interviewer: And then you read what they're asking for?

Officer: I review the scope. That's where a lot stall — people ask for "all emails about" some topic over five years. Too broad to run. So I go back and ask them to narrow it, and the clock can pause while I wait. Sometimes I never hear back.

Interviewer: Okay, scope's clear. Then what?

Officer: Then I figure out who actually holds the records. Which departments, which people — is it in someone's email, a shared drive, a case system, a paper file. Once I know the custodians, I send each a search request.

Interviewer: And they just... do it?

Officer: [laughs] In a perfect world. Chasing custodians is my biggest time sink. I send it, hear nothing, send it again, eventually I'm emailing their supervisor. They've got day jobs, and a records search is last on the list. Half my week is nudging people to search their own inbox.

Interviewer: Let me press on that — if it's half your week, is there nothing that takes it off your plate?

Officer: There is, and it's the thing I'd fix first. A platform like GovQA — Granicus — pushes the search task straight to each custodian with its own due date, auto-reminds them, and tracks who's responded, all in one place. Right now that lives in my head and a spreadsheet. Automating it would give me back days.

Interviewer: So the records start coming back. Then?

Officer: They come back in waves, and I collect and dedupe. You get the same thread from five custodians, so a chunk of the early work is just stripping duplicates so I'm not reviewing the same page ten times.

Interviewer: And then you review everything?

Officer: Then the real review — I read every page against the exemptions. Personal privacy, law enforcement, deliberative or pre-decisional, attorney-client, security. Anything under one of those I can withhold or redact, and I note which exemption applies.

Interviewer: So you're redacting by hand?

Officer: Page by page. Black out the exempt portion, log the exemption next to it. On a big production that's days of work, and it's where a slip is most expensive — miss one Social Security number and that's a real problem.

Interviewer: Earlier you said it's mostly email coming in. Still accurate?

Officer: So — actually, let me correct what I said earlier. I undersold the portal. We stood one up a while back, and a real share come through it structured now — name, contact, what they want, all keyed in. It's closer to half portal, half email-and-mail. The portal ones log cleaner.

Interviewer: Good to know. Back to redaction — does anyone check your work?

Officer: On the sensitive stuff, yes. If anything touches privilege or an active investigation, counsel reviews my redactions before a page goes out. Sometimes they disagree — withhold more, or release that — and it loops back to me to re-redact.

Interviewer: Is there a cost side to any of this?

Officer: There can be. I assess fees — search time, copies — per our schedule. On a big one I send an estimate and wait for a deposit before continuing. And they can file a fee-waiver request if it's in the public interest, which I evaluate.

Interviewer: Then you decide the outcome?

Officer: Right, the determination — full grant, partial with some withheld, or denial. Then the response letter: state it, cite the exemption for anything I held back, explain how to appeal. And I release the records — portal, email, or mailed copies.

Interviewer: One thing — you said the clock's always twenty days from when it's logged. Always?

Officer: Hmm — actually, let me walk that back a little. It's twenty business days, but it doesn't run straight through. When I narrow an overbroad request, or I'm waiting on a deposit, the clock pauses — it tolls. So it's not a fixed date the way I made it sound. And tracking that across thirty open requests is brutal on a spreadsheet. Something like NextRequest tracks each one's live deadline, tolling and all, so I'm not the one keeping score of what's due when.

Interviewer: And after you release — is it done?

Officer: Almost. There's the appeal branch. If they think I withheld too much, or don't buy my "no records" finding, they appeal to a higher level. That review can uphold it, overturn it, or send it back — if it's overturned, I'm re-processing the disputed records. Once it's resolved, I close it in the log and retain the file per the retention schedule.

Interviewer: Last thing — what do people get wrong about public-records work?

Officer: That it's just photocopying. People picture me pulling a file and handing it over. The actual job is the judgment — what's genuinely exempt versus what we're just uncomfortable releasing, and getting that line right under a deadline I don't fully control. The deadline and the redaction calls are the whole job. The copying's the easy five percent.

Interviewer: That's a great place to wrap. Thanks for walking me through it.

Officer: Anytime. Seeing it mapped out makes the spots where I'm the bottleneck obvious.