Requires all agencies to submit to the committee on open government a log of all freedom of information law requests for each year in which they received or have pending a request for records; requires the committee on open government to publish, on one webpage, all freedom of information law request logs it receives.
This bill would expand public reporting around New York’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) process. It requires state agencies that perform governmental or proprietary functions to submit annual FOIL request logs to the Committee on Open Government whenever they received or had pending requests during the year. Those logs must be provided in a machine-readable spreadsheet format and include detailed information about each request, such as the requester’s name and affiliation, subject matter, dates of receipt and response, extensions, disposition, exemptions cited, appeal activity, fees collected, documents and pages produced, redactions, and any related Article 78 litigation outcomes.
The bill also creates a separate annual reporting requirement for municipal agencies, but with a narrower scope: municipalities would report only the total number of FOIL requests received and the number closed during the reporting period. The Committee on Open Government would be required to publish all submitted logs and municipal summaries on a single webpage, preserve the data on the state open data portal or successor site, and include the number of logs submitted in its annual report. The committee would also be authorized to analyze the data and issue a follow-up report by January 1, 2028 on whether similar logging requirements should be extended or modified for municipal agencies.
If enacted, the bill would amend the Public Officers Law by adding a new FOIL reporting section and renumbering existing section 90 as 90-a. It would impose new administrative and data-publication duties on state agencies and limited annual reporting duties on municipal agencies, while expanding the Committee on Open Government’s oversight, publication, and analytical responsibilities. The bill would also increase public access to FOIL administration data and likely require agencies to track and standardize more detailed request-level information, including appeals, exemptions, fees, and litigation outcomes.
The bill’s structure suggests a generally pro-transparency and pro-accountability approach, with the goal of making FOIL administration more visible to the public and policymakers. Because no committee transcript or vote record is provided, there is no direct evidence of formal support or opposition in the available materials. The bill’s detailed reporting and publication requirements indicate an emphasis on openness and data-driven oversight rather than restricting access to records.
The main likely point of contention is the administrative burden on agencies, especially the requirement for state agencies to compile and publish highly detailed request-level logs in a standardized machine-readable format. Privacy and operational concerns may also arise from requiring requester names, affiliations, subjects, appeal status, exemptions, and litigation details to be reported and published. Another possible issue is the bill’s different treatment of state and municipal agencies: state agencies face extensive reporting obligations immediately, while municipal agencies initially report only aggregate totals, with the committee later directed to study whether more detailed reporting should be required.