Advocates to Hochul: Fix FOILs in 2026 budget

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — Fifteen advocacy groups urged Gov. Kathy Hochul to include measures in her upcoming 2026 budget to fix New York's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). They asked for legislative changes to fund local governments handling incoming FOIL requests and to address delays, loopholes, and transparency within the system.

The watchdog groups said that legal loopholes can hide certain public records indefinitely, and that penalties for non-compliance aren't severe enough to deter agencies from stalling. And even if they're not stalling, state and local agencies with limited staff and resources get overloaded with FOIL requests, causing delays.

The coalition—including Reinvent Albany, Common Cause New York, and the New York Civil Liberties Union—pointed out that local governments often cite costs as barriers to FOIL compliance. So, they proposed a new state-funded grant to help local governments pay for new staff and technology to manage requests.

They also want Hochul to back four FOIL bills in her budget proposals in early 2025:

• S8671A/A9621A: Agencies would report annual FOIL logs to the Committee on Open Government, detailing request timelines, outcomes, and fees collected. These logs would also track appeals and legal actions related to the requests and be published online for public access. Starting in 2026, agencies would have to submit their data in a standardized format.
• S5801A/A5357A: Agencies would pay attorney fees for all successful lawsuits against FOIL denials and Open Meetings Law violations. Currently, plaintiffs must “substantially prevail” in lawsuits and prove that the agency didn't have a reasonable basis to deny a request. The bill would remove the burden and award fees to anyone who wins their case.
• S8128/A8586: To incentivize faster responses to FOILs, requests would be automatically denied and appealable if agencies don't respond within five days or complete them within 60. Agencies now have five business days to provide the records asked for, deny the request, or acknowledge it with a firm date that must be within 30 days. The maximum of 60 days is for extraordinary cases, and municipalities can't cite resource shortages to justify missing deadlines.
• S3257/A9975: Businesses applying to exempt records from FOIL disclosure would need to reapply every three years, ending indefinite exemptions. It would mandate periodic review of exempted, protected records like trade secrets. They could still reapply for a commercial exemption extension at least 60 days before the current exemption expires.

"New York’s Freedom of Information Laws are essential to maintaining the transparency and accountability of our government, but the existing laws are critically flawed and need to be updated to ensure the public and the media have access to what would otherwise be privileged information," said Democratic State Sen. John Liu, who sponsored the amendment about attorney fees. "Passing FOIL reforms will protect the public’s right to know and improve the media’s ability to hold our government accountable."

When working properly, the process is supposed to give New Yorkers access to public records about, for example, spending and decision-making. However, running inefficiently, the process undermines its purpose, costs more money, and damages public trust. A March 2024 analysis from the New York Coalition for Open Government found that, in 2022:

• 72% of towns didn't post meeting documents online
• Averaged 49 days to receive meeting minutes
• 39% of counties ignored FOIL requests for over five days
• 35% of villages did post meeting agendas
• 25% of towns posted neither meeting minutes nor recordings
• 28% of counties ignored FOIL requests forever
• Averaged 25 days to receive a copy of a policy

That's why the coalition published a letter asking Hochul to prioritize FOIL reform. Noting that Hochul signed only one FOIL-related bill in 2024, they criticized the lack of progress on transparency since 2020.

In addition to the groups above, the coalition includes the Association of Health Care Journalists, BuzzFeed, Inc., Defending Rights & Dissent, Earthjustice, Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Legal Aid Society, the National Press Photographers Association, the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, and Timber. Take a look at their letter below:

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