Over 1,200 open records requests filed this year
There have been so many — mostly related to elections — that the clerk’s office says they need another full-time staffer to handle them.
The Floyd County Clerk’s Office has been inundated with open records requests over the last year, with roughly 1,200 coming in since the beginning of 2022.
Most of them are elections-related.
County Clerk Erin Elrod said the new Floyd County website has made it much easier for people to file open records requests. She said interest in the workings of government is a good thing for the community, but it’s become difficult for staff to keep up with all the requests and respond in a timely fashion.
“I just got one while sitting in this meeting,” Elrod said during the County Commission caucus on Tuesday.
Once a request is filed, the government agency has three business days to either send the requested documents or otherwise respond. Some open records requests take only a short time to address while others can take days or weeks to fulfill.
Last year, the county received hundreds of open records requests, but this year that number surpassed 1,000 in the first six months.
Around 1,100 of those requests were sent to Floyd County Elections Supervisor Pete Mcdonald regarding the 2022 primary election. Mcdonald ended up forwarding the requests to the clerk’s office to free up his email.
Assistant County Clerk Amy Dawkins, who oversees the website, has been spending most of her work days fielding requests for documents and data, although her main job is marketing and social media for the county.
“All I did (Tuesday) was open records requests,” Dawkins said.
While they have weeded out some of the requests that would have to go to other departments, such as the Clerk of Superior Court’s Office, the number of queries has opened up a need for another position in the clerk’s office.
“It takes a full-time staffer and my legal assistant, who spends 80% of her time on open records requests,” County Attorney Virginia Harman said.
The clerk’s office can’t add a full-time position to handle these cases at this time, but Elrod said they plan to bring it up later this year when they begin discussing the 2023 budget.