Government watchdog says records access could be better

Group: State lagging in return of public information requests

ALBANY — A state government watchdog found that some state agencies are responding to Freedom of Information Law requests, but improvements can be made to increase transparency and decrease barriers to submitting records’ requests and receiving timely responses.

Reinvent Albany examined FOIL responses from six agencies — the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, Empire State Development, Board of Elections, Division of Budget, New York Power Authority and Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The overwhelming majority of requests in a given year were closed, according to the recent data the watchdog analyzed.

But Reinvent Albany noted the level of information provided by the agencies about the type of request was limited or, at times, absent.

And the watchdog found that the state’s new portal for filing records requests, while intended to streamline the process, is “ironically creating barriers to public access that must be fixed.” The online portal requires users to create a profile before they can submit a request and then create a separate log-in account for each agency.

One of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s initial pledges when she entered office in the wake of the scandalplagued administration of Andrew M. Cuomo was to increase transparency and trust in the state government.

Hochul launched a new version of the state’s ethics commission, departing from the oft-ridiculed Joint Commission on Public Ethics, and she pursued online platforms intended to ease the process to file a records reas quest. (Under state law, certain public records are required to be provided by the government when requested.)

Reinvent Albany found the new ethics commission is responding to records requests, but could proactively publish more financial disclosure data on its website.

“From its creation, the commission has been committed to increasing transparency in government,” Emily Desantis, a spokeswoman for the ethics commission, said in a statement Thursday. “We appreciate that Reinvent Albany recognizes the commission’s efforts to make more data available to the public, well as their positive feedback on our processes and policies that we initiated to meet our FOIL obligations and to do so promptly.”

Desantis added that the commission will “continue to explore ways to expand the range of public information accessible on the commission’s website and other resources.”

Reinvent Albany’s review found the MTA has a backlog in records requests of more than a year. It said most agencies take more than the 20 days required by the law to provide public records. However, the State Board of Elections, it said, had a surprisingly fast turnaround time of only four days, on average.