An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Right To Know Advisory Committee Concerning Receipt of a Request for Public Records
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1. 1 MRSA §408-A, sub-§3, as amended by PL 2013, c. 350, §1, is further amended to read:
3. Acknowledgment; clarification; time estimate; cost estimate. The agency or official having custody or control of a public record shall acknowledge receipt of a request made according to this section within 5 working days of receiving the request and may request clarification concerning which public record or public records are being requested. Within a reasonable time of receiving the request, the agency or official shall provide a good faith, nonbinding estimate of the time within which the agency or official will comply with the request, as well as a cost estimate as provided in subsection 9. The agency or official shall make a good faith effort to fully respond to the request within the estimated time. For purposes of this subsection, the date a request is received is the date a sufficient description of the public record is received by the agency or official at the office responsible for maintaining the public record. An agency or official that receives a request for a public record that is maintained by that agency but is not maintained by the office that received the request shall forward the request to the office of the agency or official that maintains the record, without willful delay, and shall notify the requester that the request has been forwarded and that the office to which the request has been forwarded will acknowledge receipt within 5 working days of receiving the request.
Sec. 2. 1 MRSA §413, sub-§1, as enacted by PL 2011, c. 662, §8, is amended to read:
1. Designation; responsibility. Each agency, county, municipality, school administrative unit and regional or other political subdivision shall designate an existing employee as its public access officer to serve as the contact person for that agency, county, municipality, school administrative unit and or regional or other political subdivision with regard to requests for public records under this subchapter. The public access officer is responsible for ensuring that each public record request is acknowledged within a reasonable period of time 5 working days of the receipt of the request by the office responsible for maintaining the public record requested and that a good faith estimate of when the response to the request will be complete is provided according to section 408-A. The public access officer shall serve as a resource within the agency, county, municipality, school administrative unit and regional or other political subdivision concerning freedom of access questions and compliance.
Effective 90 days following adjournment of the 127th Legislature, First Regular Session, unless otherwise indicated.