Office of Information Practices

Hawaii’s Office of Information Practices (OIP) is pleased to announce that it has posted OIP’s Report of County Agencies’ Master UIPA Record Request Year-End Log for FY 2015 (County Report) on the Reports page of its website at oip.hawaii.gov.  The Report is based on data provided by 83 agencies from all four counties for FY 2015, which was the first year that the counties began using the Log.

Thanks to the diligent review of each agency’s FY 2015 Log by OIP’s Record Report Management Specialist Michael Little and intern Radiant Cordero, OIP was able to correct obvious data entry errors and has posted the revised Log results onto the counties’ Master Log on data.hawaii.gov.  As a result of this year’s review of the state and county Logs, OIP plans to revise its Log, training procedures, and materials in May, and will ask all agencies to submit their full FY 2016 Logs (not just data summaries) to OIP by July 31, 2016.

The County Report provides charts based on all counties’ data that can be compared to the charts for all state agencies, which can be found in OIP’s Report of State Agencies’ Master UIPA Record Request Year-End Log for FY 2015 (State Report) that is also posted on the Reports page of OIP’s website.  Moreover, the County Report has various tables that break down the overall data by each county.  Thus, data can be compared between the state, all counties, or each county.  A summary of the State Report was previously provided in a What’s New article on March 18, 2016, and it can be compared to this summary of the County Report.

The results in the County Report are similar to those in the State Report in that the typical record request was granted in whole or in part and was completed in about the same amount of time, and the typical requester paid nothing for fees and costs.  Of the 1,515 formal record requests logged by county agencies, 94% were completed in FY 2015.  Of the 1,427 completed requests, 73% were granted in full, 12% were granted/denied in part, 1% were denied in full, and the agency was unable to respond or the requester withdrew or abandoned the request in the remaining 19% of the cases.

The average number of search, review and segregation (SRS) hours spent by all counties on a “typical” non-personal, noncomplex record request was 2.52, as compared to 10.19 average hours for a complex record request.  The 139 complex record requests constituted 9.7% of all completed requests, but they accounted for 33.3% ($30,121) of the total gross fees and costs incurred by all county agencies ($90,474) and 26.5% ($3,381) of the total amount recovered from all county requesters ($12,745).

No fees or costs were paid for 824 requests, or 57.7% of the completed county requests.  Of the 603 requesters that paid any amount, 353 (58.5%) paid less than $5.00, and 199 (33%) paid between $5 and $49.99 for their requests.  Only 51 requesters (8.5% of 603 paying requesters) paid $50 or more and no one paid more than $608.25 (costs only).  Of the 51 requesters paying $50 or more, 41 appear to represent law firms, media, or commercial or non-profit entities.

OIP thanks the county and state agencies for using the Log and providing this enlightening data.  To address the common data entry errors and further streamline the data collection process, OIP is currently working on revisions to the Log and training materials.  While most of the current Log procedures will remain intact, OIP will input the agencies’ FY 2016 annual summaries onto data.hawaii.gov.  All agencies, however, must provide their entire FY 2016 Logs (not data summaries) to OIP by July 31, 2016. 

In-person training opportunities regarding the Log revisions are being planned this summer from 10:30 a.m. to noon as follows:

June 2 (Thursday)            State Capitol Auditorium in Honolulu
June 3 (Friday)                  Lihue (location to be announced)
June 7 (Tuesday)              Council Chambers in Hilo, with telecast to Kona
June 8 (Wednesday)        Council Chambers in Kahului, with telecast to Lanai and Molokai

Registration for state and county employees to attend the Honolulu seminar is online at OIP’s website through https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KKDFPJN.  The neighbor island registration will be handled by the counties and is primarily for county employees.  Neighbor island state employees should contact OIP to see if they can attend their island’s training session.  Online training available to all government employees (and the public) will be updated on OIP’s website in June.

Please check upcoming What’s New articles for additional information about the Log revisions and training.