Alaska proposes letting state agencies stop work on records requests after 15 hours

Alaska state agencies could stop working on a public records request after 15 hours of staff time or after reviewing 250 records, under rules the Department of Administration proposed Wednesday.

Anyone can ask a state agency for public records, such as emails or reports, under the Alaska Public Records Act. The proposed regulations would rewrite the rules state agencies follow when they answer, from who can ask and why to how long an appeal takes. An agency that stopped work would still have to hand over the releasable records it had ready.

The 15 hours would include time spent reviewing records for protected information the agency has to hold back. The Department of Law's current guidance calls that review "by far, the greatest time burden on agencies" and says agencies don't charge for it.

Today, state rules generally bar agencies from asking why someone wants records. The proposal would repeal that rule. Agencies wouldn't have to respond to requests made "to obtain a financial or commercial gain or personal information about a person other than the requester," or to requests that are harassing, frivolous or otherwise unreasonable. Requests also couldn't "unreasonably burden an agency by seeking all records or data on a broad or general topic."

Agencies could also put Alaska residents' requests ahead of nonresidents'. Current rules bar them from favoring any group of requesters over another.

Requesters couldn't use a third-party service or an automated process, including artificial intelligence, to submit a request, and they'd have to confirm they hadn't.

Agencies would still owe a first response within 10 working days, but that response could be an estimated date for the records, with an explanation. The proposal doesn't set a limit on how far out that date could be. Current rules allow one extension of up to 10 more working days, and only for certain reasons.

Fees would work much as they do now. If search and copying for one requester took more than five hours of staff time in a month, the requester would pay for all of it, including the first five hours. A requester's pending requests would be added together. Agencies wouldn't start work until an estimated fee was paid, and the proposal would repeal a rule that generally lets news organizations skip paying in advance.

Requesters would have 30 working days to appeal, down from 60 now. Agencies would have 45 working days to decide an appeal once the record is compiled, up from 10 now. Both the current and proposed rules allow up to 30 more working days.

The rules apply only to executive branch agencies, not the Legislature, the courts, the University of Alaska, the Alaska Railroad or local governments.

The department says the changes are meant to improve efficiency, apply the law uniformly and modernize practices. The proposal came from agency staff, and the department's filing puts its cost to the state, private persons and local governments at $0. Written comments are due by 5 pm Dec. 11, according to its public notice. After that, the department can adopt the rules, adopt different ones on the same subject or take no action.

Records costs came up in the Legislature this spring. House Bill 377 would have let cities and the Department of Public Safety charge for requests that take less than five hours. The bill didn't make it out of the House State Affairs Committee.

At an April 21 hearing on that bill, Antonia Onaxet Comack, a Wasilla advocate for families of missing and murdered Indigenous people, said the cost of records "is a barrier for getting justice for a lot of these families." At an April 7 hearing, Fairbanks Police Chief Ron Dupie, whose department wouldn't be covered by the state rules, said one of his evidence custodians "does nothing full-time now but redact video and answer records requests."