The Virginia FOIA Opinion Archive

FOIA requires the release of records of position, job classification, official salary or rate of pay, and records of allowances or reimbursements for expenses paid. Records pertaining to the retirement of school employees may be withheld as personnel records.

A record custodian can, in his/her discretion, create a record where none exits, but he/she cannot charge the requester for the new document without prior notification. Nothing prevents and nothing requires one governmental entity to forward the records responsive to a requester's request to another governmental entity, however, the first entity cannot charge the requester for that action. A governmental entity may not charge a FOIA requester for the time it takes a clerk to calculate how much the requester will be charged. Whether a charge is reasonable is a question for the courts.

A county administrator, as the chief executive officer of a county, can withhold correspondence between her and the board of supervisors under the working papers exemption.

A school district's two-business-day advance notice for record requests comports with the general FOIA requirement that requests for information must be answered within five working days.

A nonprofit hospital's line of credit obtained from an industrial development authority is not enough to establish that the hospital is supported wholly or principally by public funds. A local board's authority, consisting only of reappointing hospital directors when others resign does not make the hospital into an entity that is performing the board's delegated functions or giving it advice.

Though meetings with staff and government employees are not usually subject to FOIA, they are if they include a quorum of a public body's members. Informal gatherings - pre-meeting, post-meeting or some other time - are still meetings that must comply with FOIA if their purpose is to discuss public business.

A motion to go into closed session that meets the procedural requirements of FOIA must still concern a topic that is actually a proper subject for a closed meeting. Discussion of financial incentives a locality is considering offering to lure a new business to the area is a proper subject for a closed meeting.

The name of a physician at a particular correctional facility is public information.

Notice of future meetings must be posted at the clerk's office and a prominent public location. Though FOIA encourages the use of electronic communication via the Internet, the town's Web site does not qualify as a prominent public location under FOIA's meeting notice provisions.

Though a lcoal chamber of commerce is not a public body, records it keeps on tourism at the request and as an agent of a city council are subject to disclosure under FOIA. The chamber, not the city council is the custodian of the records where the city is not statutorily required to maintain tourism records.

There is no exemption in Virginia's FOIA, and apparently not one in the federal FOIA either, for a list of names of individuals who have requested records under either act.

A gathering of four of five members of a governing body prior to a regularly scheduled meeting is prohibited if the members are discussing public business, but is not prohibited if public business is not being discussed.

A public body cannot charge a request fee unless it has determined in advance that the fee accurately reflects the cost to search and provide a requested record.

It is not a violation of FOIA for public body members to reach a consensus in closed session, but nothing is official until a vote in open session has been taken; a motion to close a meeting listing only the purpose and the statutory citation is inadequate because it does not also identify the purpose of the meeting; FOIA insures the public's right to witness public meetings, it does not guarantee the right to participate in meetings.

An agency remains the legal custodian of records it is mandated by law to maintain, even if it does not retain physical custody of the records.

Whether an entity is supported wholly or principally by public funds is a case-by-case determination based on the totality of all revenue sources; however, as a guideline, an entity recieving at least two-thirds of its funding from the government is a public body.

Neither a volunteer fire company nor a committee created to handle the company's finances are public bodies; the minutes taken by a non-public body nonetheless become public records when they are provided to a public body (such as a city council); a non-public body's financial records in the possession of a local treasurer are not public records; a public record cannot be withheld simply because the public body for whom the record is prepared has not yet received it; there is no FOIA requirement that a request for records be made in writing.

Unlike an annual request to be notified of meetings, FOIA does not require a public body to honor a standing request for records; however, to ease the administrative burden of responding multiple requests, the body may want to honor the annual request.

According to the federal Family Policy Compliance Office, even if a school/university has designated certain student information as directory information, it can still withhold the information in its discretion.

Though a public body may discuss the sale of publicly held real property in closed meeting, FOIA and subsection B of ß15.2-1800 require a public meeting and vote before selling the property.

The city manager cannot invoke the working papers exemption to protect draft budget proposals. Because those documents are routinely generated pursuant to another law, which characterizes them as the city council's property, during the ordinary course of business, they are subject to mandatory disclosure under FOIA.

Parent is entitled to view school investigatory records relating to his/her child, but portions identifying other students, teachers or attorney-client privileged information may be withheld.

A specific provision outside of FOIA prohibits the release of investigatory files by the Board of Social Work, even to the subject of the file.

There is no blanket exemption preventing the Commissioner of Revenue from releasing any information; the legal name of a business on the commissioner's tax roles is subject to disclosure.

Actions taken pertaining to a specific school employee may be withheld, but also may be disclosed; the name, salary and job assignment of school employees must be disclosed.