City administration is looking bring in some hired guns to cope with a surge of information requests that have come in over the past two months.
Interim city manager Chris Jardine told council Sept. 12 he had authorized staff to look into hiring a consultant, for a cost in the range of $50,000 to $70,000, to help clear out the 16 information requests made to the city under the provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) law.
“We can’t meet our legislative requirements for addressing these FOIP issues,” he said. “There’s just too many of them and they’re too big.”
Under the provincial regulations, public bodies must respond to information requests within 30 days of receiving them, although there is a provision for a 30-day extension as well.
Regardless, chief legislative officer Chris Belke explained in an interview the city has just two staff members who handle the requests. Those two staff are also occupied with other important projects and deadlines right now, so the requests currently in the queue will overwhelm the city’s resources, Belke said.
Part of the problem is so many of them have come in since the beginning of August; 16 in total.
“When we get that many that come in all at once, and you’re looking at a 30-day response for all of them, the workload can be overwhelming,” he said.
While most of those requests are “run-of-the-mill requests” for things like information about specific properties, there are three in particular that will require significant time to research, compile, redact, and disclose. It is those three requests the city is looking to bring in outside help to manage.
First, there’s a request for all correspondence Mayor Nolan Crouse has sent to the head of police in relation to his role as CEO as defined in the city’s agreement with the RCMP.
Second, there’s a request for all complaints, whether by phone or email, related to transit and transit services in the city. This includes complaints about fares, drivers, late buses, and the like.
Third, there’s a request for information about one particular city engineering project. The concrete drainage swale between residences on Oak Vista Drive and Oakhill place has been a contentious issue for the city as some area homeowners have cited erosion problems.
“The reason we’re going to get somebody to help us out with it is the amount of time it will take to go through the documents,” Belke said.
He said the estimate Jardine provided to council is fair, but it’s difficult to say until all the work is completed. Because of the tight timeline involved, the city is not required to put the work out to tender and will instead contract a private consultant on an hourly rate to do the work.
He also noted the city is looking at getting the contractor to examine the city’s use of the Microsoft Office365 email system.
“We’re looking at Office365 and how it manages particular information, and whether or not there’s anything that we need to address from a privacy point of view,” Belke said.
FOIP requests are nothing new for the city, but the volume of requests coming in has increased during the current council’s term.
Belke said there were 36 in 2010, 55 in 2011, 132 in 2012, 90 in 2013, 93 in 2014, 57 in 2015 and there have been 40 so far this year.
St. Albert stands out in the province as being one of the public bodies that has handled the most information requests under the legislation.
According to reports issued by Service Alberta for the years 2011-12 and 2012-13, the city ranked fifth in the province in terms of the public bodies requests for general information. The cities of Edmonton and Calgary, Rocky View County and Alberta Health Services were the only bodies to receive more requests.
Service Alberta communications director Jo-Anne Nugent said reports for 2013-14 and 2014-15 are currently being compiled, and will be made public once they’re tabled in the legislature.
