FOIA Requests Are Up: How to Stay Resilient

Public records laws are designed to support transparency and public trust. Right now, the agencies responsible for fulfilling those requests are under more pressure than ever. Request volumes are climbing, record types are growing more complex, and staff resources have not kept pace.

For many local governments, the focus has shifted to building a records program that can handle growing demand without breaking down.

That shift, from treating FOIA as a compliance obligation to managing it as an ongoing operational responsibility, is what municipal resilience looks like in practice.

Where FOIA Programs Are Feeling the Strain

The numbers surrounding public records requests tell a clear story of rising demand and mounting operational pressure.

Growing Backlogs and Slower Response Times

At the federal level, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests topped 1.5 million in fiscal year (FY) 2024, a 25% jump in a single year. That surge caused backlogs to grow 33%, and the estimated cost of FOIA processing reached $723 million, up 22% from the prior year.

The volume and complexity of requests have also affected response times. The average time to close a simple request stretched from 39 days to 44 days in FY 2024, and fully granted requests fell to an all-time low of 12%. Administrative appeals surged 39%, a sign that more requesters are pushing back on delayed or incomplete responses.

Local governments are seeing similar patterns. In New York City, Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests more than doubled from roughly 41,000 in 2018 to more than 85,000 in 2024, with 62% of open requests already past their due date by year’s end.

And, in San Antonio, Texas, the Open Government Manager’s team grew from two people to 12 in five years to handle the surge. The city processed more than 86,000 requests in 2025 alone.

Increasingly Complex Requests

Volume is only part of the challenge. The types of records being requested are also changing as new technologies and communication channels create more records that may fall under public records laws.

Across multiple states, for example, body-worn camera footage has added to the public records workload for law enforcement agencies, especially when video must be searched, reviewed, redacted, and released securely.

The Dayton Police Department saw video records requests jump from 1,300 in 2023 to more than 3,000 in 2024, with staff describing the process as labor-intensive and costly. One Ohio police chief noted that a single video can take up to two hours to edit and redact.

Social media posts, text messages, and collaboration platform messages in tools like Slack and Teams are also increasing the scope and complexity of records management. Official business conducted on those channels may be subject to public records laws, yet many agencies have no reliable way to capture, retain, or search through them.

In Baltimore, two city agencies were found using Slack outside approved systems. When a news outlet requested those messages, the city did not provide any of them until the Inspector General subpoenaed the records directly.

Staff Capacity Limitations

Many local governments have no dedicated public records officers. Responsibility to handle records management, and much more, falls to clerks and communications staff who already carry full workloads, which means records requests often compete with every other urgent task those teams are trying to manage.

Notably, research from Eagle Hill Consulting found that 41% of government employees reported feeling burned out. Among those employees:

• 48% cited workload as the cause
• 44% cited staff shortages as the cause

When experienced records staff are constantly stretched to cover vacancies and competing priorities, it’s harder to maintain and transfer critical institutional knowledge, and the risk of disruption grows when they leave.

These conditions make it harder for agencies to respond consistently, which is why, when it comes to public records response, resilience matters just as much as compliance.

What Resilience Means for Public Records Programs

Resilience in records management means having a program that can keep working as request volumes rise, records become more complex, and staff capacity changes. It gives agencies the structure to manage demand consistently instead of relying on manual workarounds, institutional memory, or last-minute scrambling.

A resilient public records program can:

✓ Handle increasing request volumes without building constant backlogs

✓ Follow consistent, defensible processes every time, regardless of who is handling the request

✓ Reduce reliance on manual steps that slow responses and introduce errors

✓ Give staff and leadership clear visibility into workloads, deadlines, and request statuses at any given moment

These are important requirements for agencies that want to stay compliant, protect public trust, and support their staff for the long term.

4 Ways to Build More Records Resilience

1. Centralize Request Receiving and Tracking

Requests that come in through email, phone, walk-ins, and online portals are easy to lose track of.

Centralizing intake into a single system gives every request a consistent record, a clear owner, and a trackable status so staff spend less time managing their inboxes and more time serving their communities.

Centralizing the records request intake process also gives residents a clear way to submit and check on the status of their requests, which reduces follow-up calls and repeat submissions.

2. Standardize Workflows Across Departments

Many public records requests move through more than one department, from intake and search to review, redaction, approval, and release. Without a standard process in place, requests can get stuck between handoffs, leading to missed deadlines.

Documenting each step, who receives the request, who searches for records, who approves redactions, and who sends the final response, reduces guesswork and creates accountability that keeps teams on track and on time.

Standardized workflows also make it easier to train new staff and maintain institutional knowledge and consistency during turnover.

3. Make Records Easier to Find and Reuse for the Public

Many public records requests involve commonly sought documents, including:

• Meeting minutes
• Contracts
• Budgets
• Reports

Publishing those records proactively and making them easy to search allows agencies to fulfill many requests before they are even filed.

CivicPlus Resident Satisfaction and Trust Report (RSAT) shows that 72% of residents use digital tools to interact with their local government and expect quick, easy access. A public-facing records portal reduces volume and reinforces trust at the same time.

4. Use Automation to Reduce Manual Burden

In a recent report, the FOIA Advisory Committee identified manual processes as one of the key reasons backlogs keep growing and response times keep slowing. Manual intake, routing, deadline tracking, and status updates all consume time that could be spent on substantive review.

Automation helps reduce the administrative burden by logging requests, sending acknowledgment notices, routing requests to the right department, and tracking deadlines so staff can focus on work that requires review and decision-making. It also helps with the most time-consuming parts of a response, including review and redaction.

In NextRequest, the AI-powered Risk Module provides a single dashboard view of documents across the portal, including risk level, review status, and key insights. Within the module, machine learning helps identify potentially sensitive information so staff can prioritize review and manage documents more efficiently before release.

The Cost of Not Adapting

Agencies that treat rising request volumes as a temporary problem, rather than a long-term operational shift that requires a more resilient process, are taking on real risks that put compliance, staff capacity, and public trust under pressure. Persistent backlogs can continue to grow and turn into legal and reputational problems for the organization.

Administrative appeals at the federal level were up 39% in FY 2024. At the local level, missed deadlines and incomplete responses invite complaints, public criticism, and, in some cases, litigation. Staff carrying unsustainable workloads without better tools eventually burn out or leave, creating vacancies that are difficult to fill and hard to recover from.

The reputational cost is just as real. Residents who wait months for answers, or who never receive a clear response, may start to believe their government is withholding information instead of struggling with the manual work required to review, gather, and release records on time. Journalists and advocacy groups may notice the same delays and amplify them through news coverage, public reports, social media, or community pressure. Over time, slow and confusing records practices can shape the story of your organization in ways that are harder to control than any press release.

A resilient FOIA program supports compliance while also protecting the trust and credibility that every other initiative depends on.

How NextRequest Supports Resilient Records Request Management

CivicPlus^® NextRequest is software built specifically for managing public records requests. It helps public agencies of all sizes handle requests more efficiently and transparently.

With NextRequest, agencies can:

✓ Centralize all incoming requests through a public-facing online portal that gives residents a simple, trackable way to submit records requests

✓ Automatically route requests to the right staff or department, cutting down on manual handoffs and delays

✓ Track every request from intake to close, with built-in deadline alerts and status visibility for both staff and requesters

✓ Manage redaction and document release within a single platform built for accuracy and compliance

✓ Publish records for proactive disclosure, reducing repeat requests for commonly sought documents

✓ Report on workload trends with analytics that help leadership understand bottlenecks and resource needs

More than 1,100 agencies use NextRequest to manage their public records programs. Whether your team handles hundreds of requests a year or tens of thousands, NextRequest provides the structure and automation to keep your program running as demand grows.

Take a self-guided demo to learn how CivicPlus NextRequest can help your agency build a stronger, more resilient public records management program.

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