DOVER, Del. (AP) - Legislation allowing nonresidents of Delaware to request public records under the state’s Freedom of Information Act ran into a roadblock Wednesday in the General Assembly.
Currently, public bodies do not have to respond to FOIA requests from anyone who is not a resident of Delaware.
The proposed legislation, which was tabled in committee Wednesday, would remove that restriction while allowing state agencies and public bodies to charge higher fees to nonresidents, as long as they reasonably reflect the costs needed to defray expenses.
As initially written, the legislation also added language to the current law allowing anyone attending an open meeting of a public body to make audio and video recordings, as long as doing so is not disruptive.
But chief sponsor Rep. Paul Baumbach, D-Newark, removed the provision allowing audio and video recordings after getting pushback from some apparently camera-shy members of local public bodies.
In tabling the bill, committee members questioned the constitutionality of charging higher fees to nonresidents, including those who own property in Delaware but may not live here year-round.
They also expressed concerns about imposing burdens on local government that may not have the capacity to handle increased FOIA requests.
Lawmakers also were told that the bill would increase the workload for the attorney general’s office, which rules on FOIA denials from other public bodies.
Kim Siegel, FOIA coordinator for the Department of Justice, said her office is already struggling to keep up with FOIA requests for its own records while at the same time ruling in cases in which FOIA denials by other public bodies are challenged.
The attorney general’s office received 120 FOIA requests last year, almost double the 66 received in the prior year, Siegel said. It also received 49 petitions challenging FOIA denials last year, and 19 so far this year.
“We’re already unable to make a determination in a timely manner for most of them,” Siegel noted.
State law requires the attorney general’s office to rule on a FOIA challenge within 20 days, but 22 of the 27 opinions issued last year took more than three months, and more than half took longer than six months.
The Associated Press waited more than a year before receiving a ruling in February that the city of Dover violated FOIA in refusing to release details of an agreement in which a black man whose jaw was broken when he was kicked by a white police officer received $300,000 to settle a lawsuit.
“We are just overloaded,” Siegel said, adding that another deputy attorney general and part-time paralegal would be needed if the legislation is approved.
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