Labor Department Overdue for FOIA Upgrades, Auditors Say

The same week President Obama signed a bill reforming the Freedom of Information Act, the Labor Department came into criticism for inefficiencies and out-of-date computer systems for responding to requests for documents.

Labor has “not updated its FOIA regulation to reflect changes in its process made in response to more recent amendments to the law and new implementing guidance,” the Government  Accountability Office concluded in a report dated June 2 but released June 30. The department, GAO said, “uses an information technology system to manage and track requests, but it has not implemented key required and recommended capabilities for enhancing FOIA processing, such as capabilities to accommodate individuals with disabilities or electronic redaction.”

Labor has been hit with multiple FOIA lawsuits due to delays, the auditors noted, and greater efficiency might help avoid them in the future.

The report noted that from January 2005 to December 2014, requesters filed 68 FOIA-related lawsuits against Labor. Courts ruled in favor of the department in 18 of those cases. Requesters won three cases, and in one case, a ruling was jointly in favor of both the department and the requester. In 44 cases, Labor and requesters reached settlement agreements that awarded reimbursement of attorney's fees and other costs to the requesters or resulted in the department potentially releasing additional information. As of April 2016, two lawsuits GAO reviewed remained undecided.

Though 23 components in the department help respond to FOIA requests, the operation is coordinated by its Office of Information Services. In recent years, that office implemented a new system for prioritizing requests, which produced some improvement, the report found.

In fiscal 2014, Labor processed an estimated 76 percent of requests that GAO reviewed within 20 working days. “For the estimated 24 percent of cases that were not timely, officials attributed these delays, in part, to the involvement of multiple components in a single request or the time required to process large volumes of requested records,” GAO auditors found.

But contrary to Justice Department guidance, Labor “did not notify requesters of mediation services offered by the Office of Government Information Services as an alternative to litigation,” GAO noted.

Labor is taking steps to reduce its backlog of FOIA requests, the report acknowledged. GAO recommended that Labor establish a time frame to finalize and issue updated FOIA regulations and take actions to implement required and recommended system capabilities.

The department agreed with those recommendations.

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