Connecticut has a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response time problem. It’s an issue many public officials will attribute to an increase in the number of requests being submitted, which also contributes to request backlogs and voluminous requests seeking huge numbers of records.
Most state agencies don’t publicly report the number of requests they receive or process in a year, which means that the real extent of the state’s FOI response time problem—and its primary causes—are unknown.
Complaints submitted to the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) are currently the clearest available window into how various agencies are handling requests, and they show a variety of issues, some caused by requesters but more caused by agency officials’ failures. They also show it’s not unusual for requesters to wait months and sometimes years for responsive records, even when requests are simple.
The lack of a real time frame in which agencies are required to respond to requests is undoubtedly a contributing factor in the length of time it takes for requests to be processed. While the FOIC requires agencies to respond to requests “promptly,” enforcing this often requires filing a complaint with the commission, which is simply not feasible in every case where agencies are sitting on records requests. Nor should it be.
With the problem of long wait times and burgeoning backlogs looming in the background, legislators have recently considered a bill to study how long state agencies are taking to respond to FOIA requests. Though similar versions of the bill have passed out of committee with bipartisan support, including during the current session, to date, the legislation has not made it to final passage. Nor is it likely to this year with a projected General Fund deficit, a legislatively-approved budget implementer that exceeds baselines proposed by Gov. Ned Lamont, and an estimated price tag of up to $300,000 in fiscal year 2027 to study state agency response times to FOIA and FOIC complaints involving unreasonable processing times.
While state officials taking issues surrounding open government seriously would be a welcome sign, passage of the legislation isn’t necessary to gain a better understanding of how long state agencies are taking to process requests and to better gauge the types of requests agencies are receiving, because agency FOI logs can themselves be FOI’d.
Early in January, Inside Investigator submitted 33 identical requests to executive branch agencies and offices seeking a record of all the FOIA requests they had received and processed in 2025. The goal of the requests is essentially to conduct an informal audit of FOIA requests submitted to state agencies.
We asked for the name of the requester, the information requested, the date the request was closed, and whether there were any fees associated with the request. This is a simple request, which in FOI parlance means it does not require an agency to produce a large number of documents or to coordinate with other agencies in order to release information. For most agencies, this information is already tracked in GovQA.
And yet, the project has underscored how big a problem the state has with FOIA responses. Some two and a half months after those requests were submitted, 19 are still outstanding. And it’s not a simple case of requests being processed in the order they are received. I have other longer outstanding requests from multiple agencies who have already turned over a log of their requests from 2025.
It should not take that long to receive a log of data that is already generated automatically by the system most state agencies use. Generally, simple requests are the types of requests agencies prefer to receive (though they don’t work for every situation in which a person is requesting information and more complex requests are also perfectly valid to file) because they’re not a strain on their resources.
But what’s the point of filing a simple request, especially if the benefit being advertised to requesters is that they’ll receive information faster, if you’re still waiting for months?
The responses I’ve received to date also highlight other issues with the state’s handling of requests: inability to track requests.
The Department of Agriculture, which uses GovQA, provided a log of requests submitted on the platform but said they had no way to produce a log or report for the numerous requests they receive through email. University of Connecticut officials simply pointed me to the public-facing log of requests it maintains on its website, which does not accurately track how long it took the school to close a request.
If certain agencies maintain they can’t easily produce records showing how they’re managing requests, what confidence are requesters supposed to have that they’re taking their responsibility to respond to and fulfill requests seriously?
It’s understandable that agency officials might not have one single document to track requests. While most state agencies encourage you to use GovQA, they are obligated to accept requests in other formats. And those also need to be tracked.
The inability to provide proof of requests being tracked across multiple channels, and the inability to respond to a simple request for a tracking document showing how agencies handle request does not inspire confidence in the state officials management of their FOIA responsibilities. And that’s before we even delve into the actual data contained in those logs and what they reveal about how state agencies respond to more difficult requests.
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A review of FOIC pending case files, and there are many, would also provide a window into the length of time requestors are forced to wait. Additionally, it will also reveal the challenging and sometimes voluminous requests that are submitted to various municipal and state agencies. Quite frankly, the agencies are not always the problem.