MONTGOMERY — The Senate County and Municipal Government Committee passed a bill by State Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) on Tuesday that sets deadlines for responses to public records requests for government documents.
A similar bill passed the Senate last session but never made it to a vote in the House.
Orr’s bill would require a government official to acknowledge the public records request within 10 business days of receiving it.
The public official would also provide a substantive response fulfilling or denying the request within 15 business days of acknowledging receipt. Although the public officer may extend this period in 15-business-day increments upon written notice to the requester, the public officer should process a standard request as “expeditiously as possible considering the requester's time constraints, the public officer's workload, and the nature of the request,” according to the legislation.
If passed into law, the person filing a public records request would have standing to file suit to enforce the law if either a substantive response is not provided to the standard request within the earlier of 30 business days or 60 calendar days following acknowledgment of receipt by the public officer or the public records are not produced within the earlier of 30 business days or 60 calendar days following the payment of the estimated fees to the public official.
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