Despite all efforts, including employing best practices established during the successful backlog reduction project in fiscal year 2013 as well as processing over 88 percent of the thousands of referrals that were pending from last fiscal year and received by the Department this fiscal year, the FOIA request backlog rose by 15.8 percent this fiscal year. However, the Department achieved a significant reduction in the FOIA appeal backlog lowering the backlog by 13.7 percent. The Department also closed its ten oldest requests and consultations. These accomplishments are especially noteworthy in light of the fact that the Department reallocated FOIA processing resources to address large, complex FOIA litigation cases and to provide assistance to the Department on significant special document productions throughout the fiscal year.

Note that the number of FOIA requests and administrative appeals backlogs at the end of FY2014 (September 30,2014) is 10,045 or 1,376 cases more than FY2013. Processing of simple FOIA cases can take anywhere between 3 days to 1,576 days or 4.3 years. Processing complex cases can take anywhere between 11 days to 2,237 days or 6.1 years. The average number of days for processing expedited FOIA cases is 385.6 days. (see pdf)

In the table below, the “Equivalent Full-Time FOIA Employees” include When Actually Employed (WAE) former Foreign Service Officers who perform document review and students who work part-time throughout the year to process FOIA requests. Note that the breakdown of personnel does not identify exactly how many WAE and how many students are working FOIA cases, only that they are equivalent to “full-time employees.”  WAE employees have no regularly scheduled tour of duty and the hours worked cannot exceed 1,040 in a calendar year. As for the students, we don’t know how many students rotate through the FOIA office requiring training every year.   Also useful to know that each bureau has its own WAE application and appointment procedures and the ability to hire is limited by the bureau’s budgets.

According to the annual report, the processing costs below include “a percentage of the costs incurred by IT staff who were employed to support the FOIA program as one of their major duties”  The IT staffing numbers are not reflected in personnel data column so we also have no idea how many IT staff supports the FOIA office.

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In related news:

Hillary Clinton’s tweet isn’t going to solve her email problem. Not even close. http://t.co/ARfWX0uyYp pic.twitter.com/JspwJS8rdt

— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) March 5, 2015

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