Surry County Finance Director Steve Morris appears to have left his role. An April 10 draft of Surry County’s proposed 2-25-26 budget lists Carol Swindell as “interim finance director” in place of Morris. Morris was still listed on the county’s website as of last week though the site listed Swindell as of May 6. Payroll records from Jan. 1 through March 31, which the Times obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, show Morris was paid just over $5,600 every 15 days during that three-month window except for the last two weeks of March, during which he was paid one cent of pay classified under the code “RGFTEX” as of March 28, which refers to regular full-time exempt pay. The number of hours Morris worked was redacted for each pay period except Feb. 16-28, which County Attorney Lola Perkins described as a clerical error, stating all total hours worked each pay period were intended to be redacted. Perkins cited Virginia Code 2.2-3705.1 for redacting the hours worked. Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said she disagrees with applying the exemption to an employee’s number of hours worked. “Hours worked is information in the possession of Surry because of the individual’s employment, but hours worked is not private, in my opinion,” Rhyne said. “It can’t be an ‘unwarranted invasion of personal privacy’ if their colleagues are … witnessing them working alongside them. A reasonable person would not think showing up for work is a private fact that must be kept from everyone — including their co-workers.”

On April 20, 2025, Mike Sarahan, a former Richmond city employee, sent a FOIA request to Julia Holmes, the City’s newest FOIA Manager, requesting “records showing the amounts charged to the City by Ogletree Deakins, as fees and expenses incurred in connection with its representation in the pending matter, Clay v. City of Richmond, et al., Case No. CL24000929-00.” On April 28, 2025, Holmes sent the following eight pages of billing records to Sarahan, noting that “ABA numbers and account numbers” were being redacted “under Va. Code Sec. 2.2-3705.1(13).” As you can see in the images below, the City’s been billed over $130,000 so far by multinational law firm Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. And the case hasn’t even gone to trial yet.

The Big Ten Conference has told an Illinois state court that it would suffer “competitive harm” if communications exchanged by its Council of Presidents and Chancellors (COP/C) through a third-party software system were subjected to state open records laws. The league’s position supports the University of Illinois’ effort to dismiss a public records lawsuit filed against it by a Sportico reporter. At the heart of the case is whether any communications sent or received by U of I chancellor Robert J. Jones, via the Big Ten’s BoardVantage portal, qualify as public records under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The university, in a motion for summary judgment, asserted that communications conveyed over BoardVantage, a Nasdaq product, are categorically immune from public disclosure.

On Thursday, April 17, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed over 100 bills into law, one of which passed exemptions for name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals for athletes in the state. House Bill 1917, also known as Act 839, amended the Arkansas Student Athlete Publicity Rights Act to exempt the deals from state taxation and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The act was signed just before a move by the University of Arkansas’ NIL collective, Arkansas Edge. The group is reportedly seeking the return of around $200,000 from a quarterback who recently entered the transfer portal just months after arriving on campus. Arkansas was the first state to adopt a law that exempts NIL payments from state taxes, and the bill applies retroactively to all deals made on or after Jan. 1, 2025.

A declassified memo drafted by U.S. intelligence agencies contradicts President Donald Trump’s claims that Venezuela’s government controls the Tren de Aragua gang, an argument he has used to deport immigrants to an El Salvador prison. The National Intelligence Director’s Office released the memo in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit organization. The foundation provided a copy to NBC News. Titled “Venezuela: Examining regime ties to Tren de Aragua,” the declassified version of the five-page memo included some blacked out-words and passages.