State Auditor Brian Sonntag released a performance audit today dealing with state and local government agencies handling of public records requests. 30 state agencies, counties and cities were tested based on their handling of 10 separate and anonymous requests.
Our audit work revealed that, by and large, most of the 30 entities we audited are providing good customer service in responding to public records requests, the final audit report states.
You can find it here.
In the end, 31 of 300 requests were deemed to be non-responsive and seven more were deemed non-conforming or incomplete.
That means that 88 percent of the requests were fulfilled satisfactorily.
The report includes agency responses and some were defensive, even if they scored well. There were many complaints about the methodologies used to determined whether certain requests were fulfilled properly.
The City of Seattle, for instance, got dinged for fulfilling two of 10 requests sufficiently. It was faulted for asking requesters to re-submit their request with another entity within city government.
The city argues that its departments shouldnt have to accept requests for information held by other departments. Other governments did, too.
Yakima County was sited for five cases of noncompliance. In four of those five a response was drafted but was not received by the requester.
Unfortunately, a thorough review of the mail handling procedures of the Washington State Auditors Office and Yakima County were not part of this performance review, Yakima County Commissioner Ronald Gamache wrote in response.
UPDATE: Greg Overstreet posted on the report over at his Open Government blog today and offers this endorsement.
"Holy smokes. You should read this," he writes.
TUESDAY UPDATE: You can find the story on this subject that ran in todays paper here.
Stay updated with the Olympia Dispatch RSS feed:
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/944/v-highlights/index.rss
Similar stories:
State auditors keeping an eye on Tri-City government bodies
State auditors keeping an eye on Tri-City government bodies
If fraud is going on in any local governing agency in the Tri-Cities, a team of state auditors based in Kennewick will be looking to find it.
"It is an integral part of what we do," said Kent Zirker, manager for the state Auditor's Office in Kennewick. His team audits dozens of entities annually in the Tri-Cities, including the counties, cities and school districts and special districts. Most of what they do is routine review, checking accounts and verifying reports.
When something suspicious is found, the auditors pay close attention to whether the public entity has good oversight and internal controls on finances and segregates duties on managing finances, Zirker said.
Lawmakers debate curbs on public records requests
Lawmakers debate curbs on public records requests
OLYMPIA -- State lawmakers are exploring a plan that could limit how governments respond to requests for public documents, allowing them to get a court order if they can prove that a request creates a "significant burden."
The measure discussed by lawmakers Tuesday also would permit agencies to adopt policies limiting the amount of time devoted to responding to records requests.
Several agencies in the Mid-Columbia have had their fair share of records requests:
No discipline planned at North Dakota degree mill
No discipline planned at North Dakota degree mill
No immediate discipline is planned for any Dickinson State University employees in the wake of an audit determining the school awarded hundreds of degrees to foreign students who didn't earn them, the chancellor of North Dakota's university system said Saturday.
Franklin County official jailed in fraud case
Franklin County official jailed in fraud case
PASCO — A Franklin County employee is accused of dipping into the county's coffers, and now he is being held in jail without bail.
Dennis M. Huston, 64, is one of nine county employees put on administrative leave Thursday as part of an investigation into the theft of public funds, said Franklin County Commissioner Brad Peck.
Huston, the county's director of accounting and administration for the Public Works Department, is on unpaid leave, Peck told the Herald.
Wash. Senate eyes curbs on public records requests
Wash. Senate eyes curbs on public records requests
State lawmakers are exploring a plan that could limit how governments respond to requests for public documents, allowing them to get a court order if they can prove that a request creates a "significant burden."
Print
Email Story
