Records
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Attorney General’s Opinion 2002 #113
A commissioner of revenue may release names and addresses of businesses licensed in the locality. Information cannot be withheld just because it is going to be used for solicitation purposes.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-14-02
Though a public body may require a requester to pay a deposit for a request likely to cost over $200 to fulfill, the public body is also required to refund the requester the difference of any overestimate. Whether it is reasonable for a public body to maintain records in a manner that makes it hard…
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-13-02
Prison records on procedures and policies may be withheld under exemption #69 only to the extent that release of the information would jeopardize the security and safety of the building or individuals. A prison could invoke the exemption to withhold records about how a body is transported out of the prison, but if it doesn’t…
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-12-02
To claim the working papers exemption, a locality can have only one chief executive, such as the mayor or the city manager. The choice is based on the form of government and the charter, not a title. Whichever one it is, a locality cannot switch back and forth from one to the other.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-10-02
a list of delinquent real property taxpayers with parcel ID, legal description, and owner’s name with mailing address is a public record under FOIA. If government maintains a record on a computer disk, a requester can agree to receive a requested record in that form and pay a reasonable cost for it, not to exceed…
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-11-02
The FOI Advisory Council does not have authority to interpret the First Amendment. A circuit court is subject to FOIA. If the clerk’s office maintains a digital database of land conveyances, that database must be made accessible to a requester.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-07-02
Timesheets that reveal more than an employee’s job classification and rate of pay are exempt as personnel records rather than open under the FOIA provision mandating disclosure of salary info for employees making more than $10,000 annually. The Library of Virginia’s Records Management and Imaging Services classification of records does not affect their status as…
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-05-02
A public body cannot include employee fringe benefits — such as insurance, retirement and vacation benefits — when assessing the fee charged for searching, retrieving and supplying records to a requester.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-04-02
Because no general exemption or agency-specific exemption under FOIA, nor a confidentiality mandate in the Virginia Public Procurement Act, applies, draft documents and other records related to the negotiation of contracts must be disclosed. Whether such disclosure would threaten the government’s bargaining position is a matter to be taken up with the General Assembly.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-03-02
Expenditure records of the Department of Housing and Community Development are public records. Where detailed records exist, a summary of the information is not an acceptable response to a request for the actual records.
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Attorney General’s Opinion 2002 #002
Library record showing which materials a minor has checked out and which materials are overdue are exempted from mandatory disclosure, even to the parent of the minor, library records exemption, #10.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-01-02
FOIA requires the release of records of position, job classification, official salary or rate of pay, and records of allowances or reimbursements for expenses paid. Records pertaining to the retirement of school employees may be withheld as personnel records.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-49-01
A record custodian can, in his/her discretion, create a record where none exits, but he/she cannot charge the requester for the new document without prior notification. Nothing prevents and nothing requires one governmental entity to forward the records responsive to a requester’s request to another governmental entity, however, the first entity cannot charge the requester…
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-50-01
A county administrator, as the chief executive officer of a county, can withhold correspondence between her and the board of supervisors under the working papers exemption.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-47-01
A school district’s two-business-day advance notice for record requests comports with the general FOIA requirement that requests for information must be answered within five working days.
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Attorney General’s Opinion 2001 #091
A commissioner of revenue may provide remote Internet access to the names of businesses licensed to do business in a locality.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-44-01
The name of a physician at a particular correctional facility is public information.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-41-01
Though a lcoal chamber of commerce is not a public body, records it keeps on tourism at the request and as an agent of a city council are subject to disclosure under FOIA. The chamber, not the city council is the custodian of the records where the city is not statutorily required to maintain tourism…
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-42-01
There is no exemption in Virginia’s FOIA, and apparently not one in the federal FOIA either, for a list of names of individuals who have requested records under either act.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-39-01
A public body cannot charge a request fee unless it has determined in advance that the fee accurately reflects the cost to search and provide a requested record.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-37-01
An agency remains the legal custodian of records it is mandated by law to maintain, even if it does not retain physical custody of the records.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-34-01
Neither a volunteer fire company nor a committee created to handle the company’s finances are public bodies; the minutes taken by a non-public body nonetheless become public records when they are provided to a public body (such as a city council); a non-public body’s financial records in the possession of a local treasurer are not…
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-35-01
Unlike an annual request to be notified of meetings, FOIA does not require a public body to honor a standing request for records; however, to ease the administrative burden of responding multiple requests, the body may want to honor the annual request.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-33-01
According to the federal Family Policy Compliance Office, even if a school/university has designated certain student information as directory information, it can still withhold the information in its discretion.
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FOI Advisory Council Opinion AO-32-01
The city manager cannot invoke the working papers exemption to protect draft budget proposals. Because those documents are routinely generated pursuant to another law, which characterizes them as the city council’s property, during the ordinary course of business, they are subject to mandatory disclosure under FOIA.