I'd be interested to know from both agency FOIA staffers and requesters if they see a lull in releases in October after agency FOIA staff worked hard to close our requests at the end of September (The fiscal year ended Sunday).
My guess is that many FOIA letters went out Friday and this week and next (especially with the Columbus day holiday Monday) will see a lull in the closing of FOIA requests. I'm not suggesting that FOIA staff isn't doing anything, what I am saying is that they will take this time to work on other cases now that they've closed what they could last week. Agree or Disagree?
I agree there will be a decline in the number of cases closed in October, but I think that's 2-fold in both working overtime (probably unpaid) to get any type of 'almost closed' cases finalized and closed out (e.g. no "easy closures" are left) and secondly staff is now focused not on requests but on end of year closeout reports. Closeout reports being the Congressionally mandated reports to Congress as well as any internal reports for leadership/comparing past years, etc. In addition, if agencies lost any funding (we lost one temp position at the end of the FY), there will also be a decrease due to that.
On the flip side, perhaps some agencies are lucky and got "more" funding this FY for more staff and will have an increase in the number of closures!
Posted by: Jennifer | October 19, 2012 at 10:19 AM
I agree that they will not give focus on important and urgent cases to be solved. But we cannot conclude anything unless we will hear the side story of the FOIA staff.
Posted by: renewable energy | December 13, 2012 at 09:10 AM