When agency officials point fingers at each other about where records are housed, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests can fall into a black hole. Thanks to a 2024 law that doesn’t require agencies to fulfill requests if they’re not the record’s originating agency, and the law’s stipulation that it does not require agencies to answer questions, it can be incredibly difficult to wade through.
At Inside Investigator, we’re in that situation with an 11-month-old request to the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP).
Acting on a tip, in October 2025 Inside Investigator filed a request for closed complaints of discrimination or accommodation violations submitted by Connecticut State Police employees to the Police Officers Standards and Training Council (POST) Human Resources Division, as well as any resulting disciplinary actions.
This month, DESPP finally responded to the complaint. The agency said they had checked with POST and the DESPP Human Resources Division but didn’t have any responsive records because “the [Equal Employment Opportunity] and [Americans with Disability Act] units are centralized within the Department of Administrative Services.” They further suggested filing a request with DAS, which we did.
The same day the request was filed, DAS closed the request because they were “not the appropriate agency” and directed us to file a request with DESPP.
There are a multitude of issues here.
First, it took DESPP nearly a year to respond to this request, and their response only came following a threat to file a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission.
Second, a 2024 law, tucked into that year’s budget implementer bill, does not require agencies to fulfill requests if they are not the originating agency for the records. Based on all publicly available information, DESPP would appear to be the originating agency for the records we’re seeking.
According to DESPP’s website, at least as of 2023 (a timeframe encompassed by our request), DESPP has an internal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Unit to which discrimination or retaliation complaints are to be filed and which handles investigations.
DAS’ website mentions an EEO process that references only their agency. DAS also says it does not house those records.
Despite claims from officials at both agencies to not have records, they have to exist somewhere. And there’s a gap in FOIA’s ability to deal with this situation, regardless of where the records originate.
If the records originate with DAS, the 2024 law does not require DESPP to provide them, even if DESPP possesses them, because they deal with complaints involving the agency.
That 2024 law also absolves state agencies of fulfilling requests for records if they are not the agency from which the record originated. It does, however, require that agencies “promptly” refer requests to the agency from which the records originate and notify the requester that the referral has happened. We haven’t been notified that the request was forwarded.
Notification would have been helpful in this case because it would have provided some context in the follow-up request we filed with DAS seeking records from a completely different agency, and perhaps not resulted in so prompt a denial.
We now find ourselves in a black hole: both agencies deny having the records, and DAS has, to date, ignored several requests asking them to confirm that they do not house units that handle EEO and Americans with Disabilities Act complaints. (FOIA does not compel agencies to answer questions.)
That’s a problem because now that both requests are closed, the clock is ticking on our ability to file a complaint. While DESPP had nearly a year, we now have less than 30 days to determine where these records are located and which agency should face accountability at the FOIC.
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