May 20, 2005 – 7:44 p.m.
What would it take to eliminate the growing backlog of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)? The department says it has what it needs, but several experts and an analysis by CQ Homeland Security suggest that an infusion of money and staff could go a long way toward solving the problem.
The department spent $21 million in 2004 to process 152,000 requests for documents, according to DHS. The task required 340 full-time staff. Still, its backlog of unanswered requests grew from 41,000 to more than 45,000.
At that rate, the department would need an additional $6 million and roughly 100 extra staffers to eliminate the growing backlog of requests, calculations by CQ Homeland Security show.
The backlog is indicative of a larger problem, according to Rick Blum, director of the nonprofit government watchdog coalition OpenTheGovernment.org. “The real issue is whether agencies are committed to keeping the public as partners in [finding] solutions to make their country safe,” said Blum.
“We’re going to make ourselves safer when more people have more access to connect the dots.”
The House’s 2006 Homeland Security appropriations bill (HR 2360) contains no increase in funding to address the FOIA backlog. Nor does the president’s budget request, according to DHS.
Blum was not surprised. “Generally, FOIA is underfunded and understaffed, and not a priority,” said Blum, who also runs the nonprofit OMB Watch, which advocates openness in government decision-making. “Anybody who’s filed a FOIA request can tell you that.”
Blum would not say if an additional $6 million would be sufficient. “It’s hard to know how much money it would take” to improve the department’s responsiveness to FOIA requests, he said, although “throwing money at the problem” would certainly help.
Steven Aftergood, a government openness advocate for the Federation of American Scientists, agreed that more resources would help eliminate the backlog, but said he did not know if $6 million would be enough.
“FOIA is not free,” Aftergood said by telephone Friday. He said the backlog may be composed of complicated requests, which might cost more to respond to. “It’s difficult to say” how much more funding or staff would be necessary to address the backlog without more information, Aftergood said.
DHS spokeswoman Kathleen Montgomery said the department was satisfied with what the White House requested for it. “We believe the 2006 budget request provides an appropriate level of resources to support the department’s missions and functions, including the processing of FOIA requests,” she said by telephone May 19. The department declined to make a DHS FOIA official available for comment.
To calculate the extra money needed to eliminate the department’s FOIA backlog, CQ Homeland Security divided the amount DHS spent on processing FOIA requests in 2004 by the number of requests it processed that year. It then multiplied the quotient by the size of the backlog.
The publication followed a similar procedure to determine the number of added staff it would take to eliminate the backlog, first calculating the average number of FOIA requests handled by a single staffer, and then dividing the backlog by that figure.
Although Congress has not jumped to increase funding for the department’s FOIA offices — nine in all, spread across its numerous agencies, and one under the DHS secretary — it has noticed the sluggishness of FOIA offices governmentwide. A recent study by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, found that the total backlog of FOIA requests to government agencies has grown 14 percent since 2002.
During the 109th Congress, the banner of strengthening the FOIA process has been carried by Sens.
Together, Cornyn and Leahy have introduced three bills to strengthen the FOIA process. One, the OPEN Government Act of 2005 (S 394), would require regular audits to determine whether agencies were receiving — and spending — enough money to handle their FOIA workload.
Although more money could help reduce the backlog, it would not necessarily speed up the the department’s responses to FOIA requests, according to several sources.
“It’s partly a resource question, but it’s also part of a broader commitment” by agencies to make their operations more open, said Blum, of OpenTheGovernment.org.
There is a “culture” within the government workforce that “doesn’t take the FOIA seriously,” said one senior administration official familiar with the FOIA process. “You would be amazed at the lack of understanding” among government employees as to what federal law requires agencies to disclose, said the source, who insisted upon anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
However, warned Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, it is important to keep in mind that requests can suffer fates worse than being relegated to a backlog pile.
“If the department were to start aggressively denying requests, they could reduce the backlog,” he said. “But the intent of the [FOIA] law would not be fulfilled.”
Justin Rood can be reached at jrood@cq.com.