EPD addresses surge in record requests

Council OKs administrative assistant role to help manage deadlines

City Council last week voted to fund a new fulltime administrative assistant position within the Elgin Police Department to address a bump in public information requests and reduce strain reported among personnel.

The new role, approved by council members during their meeting Feb. 3, will focus on handling Freedom of Information Act and open records requests, which police officials said have increased dramatically in recent years. It will be funded using salary savings already built into the Police Depar tment ’s current budget and serve as the main point of contact for public information requests.

Cmdr. Todd Johnson said the department averages about 111 requests per month, which can take substantial time to fulfill.

“We’ve been able to kind of spread up the duties as they come in. Over the years, they’ve been doubled,” Johnson said. “If you do the math, there’s not that many days in a month.”

Some of the public records requests can take as long as three days to complete, according to Johnson.

Requests pull from a wide range of source material, including police reports, body camera footage and dash camera video. They are subject to federally mandated deadlines, requiring a response within 10 days, and failure to meet those deadlines can expose the city to liability.

“We’ve been able to maintain it over the years, but it’s getting to the point where we’re having to juggle other things or having to fall short,” Johnson said.

Currently, only one full-time administrative assistant handles case preparation duties, which include reports, evidence documentation and court filings, as well as managing public information requests. Johnson said the growing workload has forced staff to prioritize the federally mandated open records requests over other tasks such as case preparation for prosecutors.

“These victims are waiting for their cases to get to the prosecutor’s office to start the prosecution work on them until we send them,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s no mandate on that.”