FOIA admin fee?

I thought we were talking about the University of Oregon. Last I checked that's a public university and public universities are among the largest - if not the largest - government agencies in each state.

 

I kinda worry about the fact that a journalist can't see the difference between a public university which receives taxpayer support and a private business.

 

Not only do many charge the fee, one certain large and successful state university we covered hated getting FOIA requests. The SID/assistant vice president of whatever would complain whenever he could and would threaten access.

Also, if you ever asked for any type of consideration or extra access, the first think he would bring up is could we limit the requests.

And it's not because they had anything to hide. They only had so many people in the office and he was worried about their workload.

 

I wonder if there are any SIDs or PIOs lurking on this board, because I would be interested in hearing how many times they've fulfilled a FOIA request only to have nothing published by the requester. I know that there has been a time or two where I've requested the salaries of a few coaches, received the information, been like "Hmmm, that's what I expected," and moved on with my life.

There is a reasonable line when it comes to responding to a FOIA request with a bill. If someone is asking for something as simple as the salaries of your university's coaching staff? That should be free, because I can't imagine the workload is that strenuous. If you're the McKinney police department and Gawker comes knocking? Yes, $79,000 is a liiiiittle excessive, but I have no problem with them demanding some money. A lot of work needs to be done on the behalf of the media outlet.

 

OTOH, if you request a coach's emails over a certain period, I am convinced they spent a lot of time weeding out anything juicy because of "student confidentiality" and work hard to find a pile of boring emails to send.

 

Nah, just enjoying trolling all of you.

 

God, you're kidding right? Seriously. Are you really that dense?