Feds Taking Longer to Answer FOIA Requests

President Bush, left, sits with Priscilla Presley during a luncheon with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, not pictured, at Rendezvous, a barbeque restaurant, after their tour of Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley, in Memphis, Tenn., Friday, June 30, 2006. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (Charles Dharapak - AP)

Comparing the 2005 data with 2000, the last year before the Bush administration took office, the coalition study found that the number of government employees working on FOIA requests in the 22 agencies studied declined by 23 percent, from 4,288 to 3,315.

Talamona said the governmentwide figures, including the 22 agencies and HHS, VA and SSA, showed a slight increase in FOIA work force during the Bush administration, from 4,925 in 2001 to 5,039 in 2004.

The coalition study found the worst backlogs at the Securities and Exchange Commission and Housing and Urban Development Department, where unprocessed requests in 2005 represented 131 percent and 127 percent of the number of requests actually processed that year.

Unprocessed requests as a percentage of processed requests improved from 2004 to 2005 at the Energy, Interior and Treasury departments, and at the Archives, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, SEC and Small Business Administration.

Among agencies with more than 20,000 annual requests, the best performance in 2005 was turned in by the Labor and Agriculture Departments, where unprocessed requests amounted to 3 and 4 percent, respectively, of processed requests.

Waiting time also increased. More agencies showed greater median response times in 2005 than those who reported taking less time to tell requesters whether they will or won't get documents they sought.

The delays for some of the most complex requests grew substantially. The SEC said median waiting time for its 1,099 complex requests was 410 working days, more than double the median wait a year earlier. There are 261 federal work days in a year.

One Agriculture Department component reported its median wait time for complex requests was 1,277 work days. A Justice Department unit put its response time for complex queries at 863 days.

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On the Net:

The study: http://www.sunshineweek.org/files/cjogfoiarpt06.pdf