What FOIL is, and how it works in a town
New York’s Freedom of Information Law governs public access to government records. Small towns receive far fewer requests under it than people assume. This page describes what the law sets statewide and what each town sets for itself.
This page is a general description of how the law is structured. It is not legal advice and does not recommend any course of action.
What FOIL covers
FOIL — the Freedom of Information Law, in Article 6 of the Public Officers Law — gives any person the right to ask a government agency for its records. A town is an agency. So is a village, a county and a school district.
Much of what people look for in a small town — the minutes of last month’s meeting, the adopted budget, next week’s agenda — is ordinarily available from the clerk’s office without any formal process. A FOIL request is a separate, formal mechanism that carries statutory deadlines and a written record.
The “reasonably described” standard
The law uses the phrase “reasonably described.” It is the standard by which an agency determines whether it can identify and locate the records a request refers to.
In practice this is what separates a request an agency can act on from one it cannot. A request naming a particular document and date describes a record an agency can locate. A request framed around a broad subject rather than identifiable records often cannot be matched to specific files, and the law does not require an agency to fill a request it cannot identify.
What is the same in every New York town
These come from the statute, so they do not vary from one town to the next.
- Five business days to respond. An agency has five business days to either release the record, deny in writing, or send a written acknowledgment that includes an approximate date for a response. That clock is set by the state, not by the town.
- You do not have to say why. A requester is generally not required to explain why they want a record or what they intend to do with it. The one notable exception concerns lists of names and addresses, where an agency may ask for written certification that the list will not be used for solicitation or fund-raising.
- Inspection is free. You may look at accessible records at no charge. Fees attach to copies, not to looking.
- Twenty-five cents a page is a ceiling for ordinary copies. An agency may charge up to 25 cents per photocopy up to 9 by 14 inches, unless some other statute sets a different fee for that particular record type. It is a maximum, not a set price.
- Search time is not billable. The law says the actual cost of reproduction “shall not include search time or administrative costs,” and no fee may be charged for employee time at all unless at least two hours of it are needed.
- Thirty days to appeal a denial. If you are denied, the law gives you thirty calendar days to appeal in writing. (A narrow category of records withheld under a narrow trade-secret and critical-infrastructure process carries a much shorter window, so read a denial letter carefully.)
- Ten business days to decide your appeal. The agency has ten business days to grant access or explain its denial in writing. Note the units: thirty calendar days for you, ten business days for them.
- Silence counts as a denial. If the deadlines pass with no answer, that failure is itself treated as a denial, and you can appeal it.
- Your appeal goes to the state too. The agency must forward a copy of your appeal and its determination to the Committee on Open Government.
What each town sets for itself
This is the part that makes searching for a general answer so frustrating, because the answer genuinely differs by town.
- Who hears your appeal. The statute does not name a universal appeals officer. Each agency either has its governing body decide appeals or designates a person or body to do it. In practice one town routes appeals to its supervisor and the next routes them to the whole town board. There is one firm limit: the records access officer who handled your original request may not also decide your appeal.
- Where to send the request. Each agency designates a records access officer. In a town it is very often the town clerk, but not always.
- The form. Many towns publish their own FOIL form. Using it is usually the fastest path, though a plain written request is generally sufficient.
Because appeal routing is set by each agency rather than by statute, the identity of the appeals officer is a fact about that particular agency. A denial letter ordinarily identifies where an appeal is directed.
Minutes have their own, faster rule
Meeting minutes are the single most requested record in a small town, and the Open Meetings Law handles them separately from FOIL. Under the Open Meetings Law, minutes of an open meeting must be available within two weeks of the meeting, and minutes of an executive session within one week.
Two things follow from that. You generally do not need to FOIL recent minutes at all. And minutes that have not yet been approved by the board still have to be made available — a town may mark them as draft, but “they are not approved yet” is not a reason to withhold them.
Format and medium
You may ask for a copy in the medium of your choosing where the agency can reasonably make a copy that way, and an agency that has reasonable means to receive and answer requests by email should do so.
Electronic delivery falls outside the per-page copying charge, though it is not necessarily free: employee time beyond two hours and the actual cost of any outside service remain chargeable. Inspection is the one route the law places no charge on.
What a request contains
The law does not prescribe a form, and no legal language is required. A request is written, and it identifies the records sought in terms specific enough for the agency to locate them.
Agencies commonly publish their own form. Where one exists, it reflects how that agency prefers to receive requests; the statute itself does not require its use.
Timing runs from receipt. The five-business-day period described above is measured from when the agency receives the request, which is why the date a request was sent is the reference point for every later deadline.
Denials, redactions and appeals
A denial should be in writing and should say why. Partial redactions are common and are not automatically improper — some categories of information are withheld under the law’s exemptions, and a town may release a record with parts blacked out.
An appeal under the law is a written submission to the agency’s designated appeals officer, made within the thirty-day period described above. It is an administrative step within the agency rather than a court proceeding.
The Committee on Open Government, at opengovernment.ny.gov, has oversight of FOIL and the Open Meetings Law and publishes written advisory opinions. Those opinions are advisory rather than binding.
The requests small towns rarely get
Clerks in small towns will tell you they go months without a FOIL request. Residents assume records are hard to get, so they do not ask — and the records sit there, entirely available.
Most of what people want is routine: minutes, budgets, agendas, a permit file. That category is exactly what a town could simply publish, so nobody has to request it at all. That is what Towncrier is for — when a town posts its notices, agendas and minutes through Towncrier, residents can read them as they go up, and the clerk answers fewer of the same questions.
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