To Whom Applicable: Public Bodies

Ironbridge Acres, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Petersburg Hospital Authority is a public body subject to FOIA.

Virginia Marine Science Museum Foundation is a private entity not subject to FOIA.

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.

A nonprofit hospital's line of credit obtained from an industrial development authority is not enough to establish that the hospital is supported wholly or principally by public funds. A local board's authority, consisting only of reappointing hospital directors when others resign does not make the hospital into an entity that is performing the board's delegated functions or giving it advice.

Institutional review boards and human research review committees at institutions of higher learning are not public bodies. They are supported wholly or principally by public funds, but they do not perform a delegated function of their parent entities.

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 records.

Whether an entity is supported wholly or principally by public funds is a case-by-case determination based on the totality of all revenue sources; however, as a guideline, an entity recieving at least two-thirds of its funding from the government is a public body.

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 public records; a public record cannot be withheld simply because the public body for whom the record is prepared has not yet received it; there is no FOIA requirement that a request for records be made in writing.

(NOTE: The 2002 General Assembly added an amendment to FOIA reversing this decision and making clear that all constitutional offices are subject to FOI law.)

Present: All the Justices

JAMES G. CONNELL III v ANDREW KERSEY

OPINION BY JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR.

Record No. 001729

June 8, 2001

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY
Jane Marum Roush, Judge

Citizens advisory committee established to make recommendations to the State Transportation Board is subject to FOIA.