For Sunshine Sunday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an open-government experiment, sending 55 requests for records to county governments, school boards and 14 of the region’s largest cities to test the timeliness and quality of their responses.
The requests went out under the names of several editors at the newspaper — and in some cases a family member of an editor — but did not mention an affiliation with the AJC.
By law, agencies have three business days to respond to requests for records, and they did so on 50 of the 55 requests. Not all of those responses actually supplied the requested records: Some asked follow-up questions; a few said the request had been sent to the wrong place and told the requester where it should be directed; and a few said the documents were available for personal inspection.
In requests sent to 14 mayors and nine county commission chairmen, the AJC asked for “records relating to your most recent travel on city business and the expense report(s) you filed in connection with that travel.”
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s office promptly emailed 21 pages at no charge documenting his travel in January. And in fact, the AJC’s audit found that most local governments are following the law, some with more zeal than others.
The city clerk of Duluth, for example, responded to the emailed request 41 minutes after it was sent, and the human resources manager supplied the information free of charge three minutes after that. (The request was for the annual salaries of the city manager and the directors of public works and parks and recreation.)
Canton City Clerk Susan Stanton, emailing the information 23 hours after receiving the request, wrote: “This information only took a few minutes to gather, so it’s on the house.”
Most agencies supplied the records free of charge. Under the law, agencies may charge reasonable hourly rates for gathering information; they also can charge 25 cents a page for photocopies.
The Georgia Open Records Act doesn’t say that agencies may demand payment up front. But it also doesn’t say they can’t demand payment up front.
An office administrator in Clayton County government required full payment before she would email documents showing the salaries of the directors of finance, transportation and information technology. Full payment was 75 cents, by personal check or in exact change.
Likewise, the city clerk’s office in Johns Creek responded by email that the record of the mayor’s most recent travel expense report was 68 pages long, and the city would require payment in advance of $17. An AJC editor presented payment in person and was given the hard-copy file within 10 minutes.
Certain Fulton County officials were almost instantly responsive — without really providing much information. The county attorney did send a record of the commission chairman’s most recent travel, at no charge. But responses to requests to the county manager and the school board said only that the records were available for inspection and warned that a charge was possible.
Most other counties promptly provided salary information for three top officials by email, and all but one of eight school districts emailed or mailed copies of the superintendent’s employment contract without delay.A handful of mayors did not respond at all to requests for their travel expenses.
As the mayor of Cumming for more than 40 years, Ford Gravitt didn’t respond to the emailed request because, well, he doesn’t have email, according to City Manager Gerald Blackburn.
“You get me the request, and I’ll get you the information right away,” Blackburn said.
