2019 was the second-busiest year ever for the Office of Open Records. That’s one of the facts included in the OOR’s newly released 2019 Annual Report.

The OOR is required to “annually report on its activities and findings to the Governor and the General Assembly” (Section 1310(a)(9) of the Right-to-Know Law). Typically, the annual report is released during Sunshine Week in early March. This year, issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the release for about a month, but here’s our 2019 Annual Report:

2019 OOR Annual Report – PDF

Highlights from the report include:

• 2,658 appeals were filed in 2019, making it the second-busiest year on record.
• The current three-year average is 2,440 appeals; the current five-year average is 2,470.
• More than half (51.6%) of the appeals docketed in 2019 were filed by everyday citizens.
• About 75% of the appeals filed in 2019 involved local agencies.
• The OOR conducted 105 mediations in 2019.
• The OOR led or participated in 88 training sessions in 2019.
• The OOR responded to 1,006 RTKL requests in 2019 (a record high), although the vast majority were misdirected.

Previous annual reports are available here.

More Right-to-Know Law appeals were filed involving local agencies in Allegheny County — including the county itself, school districts, authorities, municipalities, etc. — than in any other county in 2017. (Allegheny County is home to about 130 municipalities and about 40 school districts.)

The top 10 counties by this measure were:

• Allegheny, 166
• Philadelphia, 157
• Dauphin, 119
• Delaware, 97
• Lehigh, 89
• Montgomery, 89
• York, 71
• Luzerne, 65
• Bucks, 55
• Berks, 51

This map shows the number of non-inmate appeals involving local agencies which were filed with the OOR in 2017. All local agencies (e.g., county government, school districts, municipalities, etc.) are included in each county total.

The top 10 counties by this measure are all among the top 15 most populous counties in Pennsylvania.

This information is from the OOR’s 2017 Annual Report.

In 2017, for the first time ever, the Office of Open Records tracked the issues raised by agencies and addressed by the OOR’s Appeals Officers during Right-to-Know Law appeals.

This data gives some insight into the reasons most commonly raised by agencies for denying access to records.

Of the 30 exemptions specifically enumerated in Section 708(b) of the RTKL, these 11 were raised most often in 2017:

• Criminal Investigative Records, (b)(16), 156
• Noncriminal Investigative Records, (b)(17), 127
• Personal Identification Information, (b)(6), 104
• Personal Security, (b)(1), 72
• Internal, Predecisional Deliberations, (b)(10), 71
• Public Safety, (b)(2), 65
• Agency Employee Information, (b)(7), 34
• Trade Secret / Confidential Proprietary Information, (b)(11), 32
• Building, Infrastructure and Utility Safety, (b)(3), 29
• Procurement Prior to Award of Contract, (b)(26), 20
• Notes and Working Papers, (b)(12), 20

The OOR’s Appeals Officers also heard hundreds of cases in which the agency asserted that the requested records didn’t exist (426), the requested records weren’t in the possession of the agency (184), and the request wasn’t specific enough or asked questions rather than seeking records (117).

Many appeals heard by the OOR involve more than one exemption and/or other reasons for denying access to records.

We will continue to track this data in coming years. Over time, the comparison between years should become a useful tool.

This information is from the OOR’s 2017 Annual Report.