County reviews public records policy

Residents will be able to alter their initial request to mitigate the need for that service charge. The reason for the charge, staff says, pertains to the nature of requests by certain residents who submit their inquiries repetitively, asking for the same information each time. According to County Manager Casey Smith, some make requests and take up staff time “just because they can.”

As a result, the county seeks to standardize its public records request process.

“This stuff takes a lot of staff time, a lot of work to sift through,” Assistant County Manager Jason Martin said. “For example, somebody may request information from DSS for the health department, but not everything in there can go out. There may be medical information in there that needs to be withheld and that sort of thing. That may take a lot of IT staff time to pull all of that together.”

The county is required by public law, Martin said, to provide a record if it has it. The county does not, however, have to create a record if it does not have it. With its amended public records policy, Davidson County aims to create a process that establishes some expectations of what the county expects in a submission and what residents can expect in a response.

Among the information that should be requested from residents are the date of request, name of the applicant, telephone number and email address. Requests for records can be returned with the records as requested, or the request can be denied.

All replies to public records requests are submitted via email.