FOIA In Michigan -- Neither Information Nor Freedom Is Free

By David Hinz - Posted on November 12th, 2009

The Mackinac Center For Public Policy is a non-partisan Think Tank that acts as a watchdog on government in Michigan and throughout the country. The Michigan State police has sent the Machinac Center a bill for $6,876,303.90 to provide information requested from the state.

As part of a MCPP investigation into the states handling of Homeland Security funds, communications specialist Kathy Hoekstra submitted a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request for State Police records pertaining to the disbursement of those funds from 2002 to the present.

This FOIA request was a followup investigation to a 2008 report from the Office of the Inspector General that spot checked seven counties from 2002-2004 and found serious violations of state law, and shoddy -- at best -- record keeping.

That report uncovered the fact that the authorities in those counties could neither account for receipts for personal items purchased with DHS grant money, nor even account for where the purchased items now were.

Quote:

# Difficulty in locating emergency equipment.

# Questionable need for an emergency response trailer purchased with grant funds.

# Unauthorized use of an emergency tow vehicle for personal commuting.

# Emergency equipment, such as personal protective equipment and an emergency response trailer, not immediately accessible or ready for emergency use.

# None of the seven counties visited had the control or accountability systems required by federal regulations. Accordingly, there was no assurance that millions of dollars of personal property procured with federal grant funds was adequately safeguarded or used solely for authorized purposes.

# None of the seven counties we visited had satisfactory control and accountability for personal property procured with first responder grant funds. We were able to locate procured personal property selected for physical inspection, mainly because county emergency management officials could mentally recall where the items were and who had possession of the property. Complete documentation did not exist that would have enabled us to locate the property and its custodians.

While the initial FOIA request, from which those troubling statistics were drawn cost a mere $235.90, the expanded request for an additional five years of records now will total, according to the State of Michigan, almost $6.9 million.

Hoekstra followed up with the state to verify those numbers, and was sent a breakdown of the figures:

Search, examination and deletion [redaction of sensitive information] comes to about $6.1 million, while copying of the more than 2 million pages the state claims are relevant comes to another $700,000. More than two million pages sounds, to some people, like a document dump -- causing some experts to wonder exactly what the State of Michigan is trying to bury under a mound of information.

Still other experts claim this is nothing more than an attempt to discourage any examination into the government program by making the filing of a FOIA too costly for most citizens or groups by putting the cost out of reach.