Office of Information Practices

The State Office of Information Practices (OIP) has posted at oip.hawaii.gov two new reports of the State and county agencies’ UIPA Record Request Year-End Logs for FY 2022, which show many similarities between the overall results for the State and counties.

State agencies completed 95.8% of the 2,247 total requests they received in FY 2022 and county agencies completed 95% of their 2,346 total requests.  For both State agencies and county agencies, formal UIPA record requests were 0.2% of the total of all routine and formal requests received.

Of all record requests received by the State agencies in FY 2022, 71% were typical requests, 23% were personal requests, and 6% were complex requests.  In comparison, the county agencies received 81% typical requests, 8% personal requests, and 11% complex requests.

The average number of days to complete any type of request were nearly identical for State (8.0) and county (8.1) agencies, although it took an average of 25.3 days for State and 19.5 days for county agencies to complete complex record requests.

Complex record requests continue to take a disproportionate share of both State and county resources while contributing less than their fair share to payment of fees and costs.  On average, State agencies spent 6.26 search, review and segregation (SRS) hours for each complex record request versus 2.55 hours for a typical request.  County agencies spent an average of 2.95 SRS hours on a complex record request versus 1.29 hours for a typical request.  Although 141 complex record requests constituted 6% of all State requests, they consumed more than twice as many SRS hours on average compared to typical requests and accounted for 18% ($16,078) of the gross fees and costs incurred by State agencies ($86,801), of which only 6% ($5,193) was ultimately paid by requesters in complex State cases.  Similarly, the 239 complex requests constituting 11% of the counties’ total requests also consumed over twice as many SRS hours on average compared to typical requests, and accounted for 27% ($16,821) of the total gross fees and costs incurred by all counties ($61,737), of which 12% ($7,349) was actually paid by requesters in complex county cases.

The overwhelming majority of requesters, however, continue to pay no fees or costs:  87.8% of State requesters and 85.1% of county requesters. Only one State requester and two county requesters paid $1,000 or more for requests completed in FY 2022.  As in years past, it appears that most fees and costs are being paid by for-profit entities, and not by individual requesters, for either State or county record requests.

As to how requests were resolved, what follows is a summary compiled from Chart 4 of the FY 2021 and 2022 annual Log reports for the State and counties, which are posted on OIP’s UIPA Record Request Log Reports page that can be accessed by clicking on  “OIP Reports” at oip.hawaii.gov.

Comparison between State and County Log Reports
How Resolved	FY21	FY22	FY21	FY22
	State	State	Counties	Counties
Granted in full	70%	54%	62%	58%
Partially granted/denied	9%	12%	18%	13%
Denied in full	6%	8%	5%	4%
Agency unable to respond	17%	11%	8%	21%
Requester withdrew	1%	1%	2%	1%
Requester abandoned/failed to pay	4%	4%	5%	4%

OIP would like to thank all agencies who timely submitted their FY 2022 Year-End Log Reports and Checklists on which OIP’s reports were based.  Additionally, OIP would like to remind all agencies that their Semi-Annual Log Reports and Checklists are due by January 31, 2023. 

Mahalo!