State law gives any resident the right to inspect public records, and it sets a clock on the response. This audit asks one question: does County A meet that deadline in practice?
Not whether the law is sound; whether the county follows it. The audit ends in a yes or a no, sourced to the record.
The Public Records Act requires a public body to grant or deny a request within ten business days of receipt. A body that needs longer must say so in writing and state a date certain.
“…shall, within ten business days, either comply with or deny the request; any denial or extension shall be in writing.” [Statute § (quote pending clearance)]
Across [N] requests filed between [date] and [date], the median time to a substantive response was [31] business days; roughly three times the statutory deadline.
[share]% of late requests carried no written extension notice, which the statute requires the moment a body passes the ten-day mark.
The same statutory deadline binds every jurisdiction in the table. The only variable is performance against it.
| Jurisdiction | Deadline | Median response | Meets standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| County A | 10 business days | 31 days | No |
| County B | 10 business days | 9 days | Yes |
| State median | 10 business days | 14 days | Partial |
The county attributes the delay to a single records officer and rising request volume, and notes that genuinely complex requests fall outside the strict clock. Both points are real.
Neither explains the missing extension notices. Those take minutes to send and are themselves required by the same statute.
Two measures touch this gap. SB-[XXX] would attach a daily penalty to missed deadlines; HB-[YYY] would fund a second records officer.
This audit takes no position on either. It records that both are live, and what each would change.
File a records request for the county’s response-time log for the last twelve months; the same data this audit used. If your numbers differ from ours, the discrepancy is the story.
The log is itself a public record under the statute this audit measures.
County A’s median response of [31] business days is more than three times the ten‑day deadline the statute sets, and [share]% of requests lacked the written extension the law requires when that deadline is missed. The standard is written; the record does not meet it.