{"id":9381,"date":"2013-11-13T12:23:02","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T16:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.mml.org\/wp\/inside208\/?p=2519"},"modified":"2013-11-13T12:23:02","modified_gmt":"2013-11-13T16:23:02","slug":"foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

The House Oversight committee passed out HB 4001, the bill making many changes to FOIA. The substitute that was adopted can be viewed here:\u00a0HB 4001 H-2<\/a>.\u00a0 While the substitute has improved from the introduced version, the League still has concerns and is opposed to this legislation.\u00a0 The League along with two attorneys for the city of Ann Arbor were prepared to offer testimony with our concerns but the bill was passed out of committee with no testimony taken.<\/p>\n

We do appreciate the opportunity we had to be involved in the workgroup held early in July and are pleased to see there is now an internal appeal process that must be exhausted (if the municipality offers an internal process) prior to commencing an action in the courts to try and resolve any disputes.\u00a0 Additionally, we do appreciate the time and labor calculations are now to be made on a total sum basis instead of individually broken out into the multiple new invoice categories as in a previous version.<\/p>\n

However, Governmental entities are still not able to recover the true cost of the FOIA request, one of our existing concerns with the legislation.\u00a0 The legislation specifically states benefits are not to be used in calculating the cost of FOIA.\u00a0 Medical insurance and other benefits are a large portion of a person\u2019s hourly labor cost.\u00a0 Local municipalities do not stop providing an employee\u2019s benefits while they are working on these requests.\u00a0 Not being allowed to recover the true cost means every other tax payer in the municipality is now subsidizing the request.\u00a0 Additionally, the language still states that all partial time increments when calculating labor costs must be rounded down, again, not allowing for the true cost of the request to be recovered.<\/p>\n

Rep. Jim Townsend offered up a handful of amendments, two of them (clarification pieces) were accepted.\u00a0 One that he offered would have allowed a municipality to include benefits when calculating the labor charges but that was voted down.<\/p>\n

The League will continue, with the help from the municipal attorneys who have been so gracious in providing their feedback and assistance on this, to work on this issue to make sure as many of our concerns are addressed as possible.<\/p>\n

Nikki Brown is a legislative associate for the League handling economic development issues. \u00a0She can be reached at nbrown@mml.org or 517-908-0305.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House Oversight committee passed out HB 4001, the bill making many changes to FOIA. The substitute that was adopted can be viewed here:\u00a0HB 4001 H-2.\u00a0 While the substitute has improved from the introduced version, the League still has concerns and is opposed to this legislation.\u00a0 The League along with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legislative-link-articles","category-municipal-services","mml-onemagnify-plugin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee - Inside 208<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee - Inside 208\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The House Oversight committee passed out HB 4001, the bill making many changes to FOIA. The substitute that was adopted can be viewed here:\u00a0HB 4001 H-2.\u00a0 While the substitute has improved from the introduced version, the League still has concerns and is opposed to this legislation.\u00a0 The League along with [...]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inside 208\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/MMLeague\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-13T16:23:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/10\/Inside-208-Site-Image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dene Westbrook\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@MMLeague\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MMLeague\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dene Westbrook\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dene Westbrook\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/person\/15aed4510ea6fe39f324094edb06c88c\"},\"headline\":\"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-13T16:23:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/\"},\"wordCount\":401,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Legislative Link Articles\",\"Municipal Services\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/\",\"name\":\"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee - Inside 208\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-13T16:23:02+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/\",\"name\":\"Michigan Municipal League - Inside 208\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Michigan Municipal League\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/01\/mml-logo-square-e1673462978850.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/01\/mml-logo-square-e1673462978850.jpg\",\"width\":600,\"height\":303,\"caption\":\"Michigan Municipal League\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/MMLeague\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/MMLeague\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/mmleague\/\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/person\/15aed4510ea6fe39f324094edb06c88c\",\"name\":\"Dene Westbrook\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d4721eb8effd8cf177fa62c157e667f61896ad872ae6a223a223ce1b260d8b8d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d4721eb8effd8cf177fa62c157e667f61896ad872ae6a223a223ce1b260d8b8d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dene Westbrook\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/mml.org\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/author\/mmldev1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee - Inside 208","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee - Inside 208","og_description":"The House Oversight committee passed out HB 4001, the bill making many changes to FOIA. The substitute that was adopted can be viewed here:\u00a0HB 4001 H-2.\u00a0 While the substitute has improved from the introduced version, the League still has concerns and is opposed to this legislation.\u00a0 The League along with [...]","og_url":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/","og_site_name":"Inside 208","article_publisher":"https:\/\/facebook.com\/MMLeague","article_published_time":"2013-11-13T16:23:02+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/10\/Inside-208-Site-Image.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Dene Westbrook","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@MMLeague","twitter_site":"@MMLeague","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dene Westbrook","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/"},"author":{"name":"Dene Westbrook","@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/person\/15aed4510ea6fe39f324094edb06c88c"},"headline":"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee","datePublished":"2013-11-13T16:23:02+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/"},"wordCount":401,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Legislative Link Articles","Municipal Services"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/","url":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/","name":"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee - Inside 208","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-11-13T16:23:02+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2013\/11\/13\/foia-bill-passes-out-of-house-committee\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"FOIA Bill Passes Out of House Committee"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#website","url":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/","name":"Michigan Municipal League - Inside 208","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#organization","name":"Michigan Municipal League","url":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/01\/mml-logo-square-e1673462978850.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/01\/mml-logo-square-e1673462978850.jpg","width":600,"height":303,"caption":"Michigan Municipal League"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/facebook.com\/MMLeague","https:\/\/x.com\/MMLeague","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/mmleague\/"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/person\/15aed4510ea6fe39f324094edb06c88c","name":"Dene Westbrook","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d4721eb8effd8cf177fa62c157e667f61896ad872ae6a223a223ce1b260d8b8d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d4721eb8effd8cf177fa62c157e667f61896ad872ae6a223a223ce1b260d8b8d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dene Westbrook"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/mml.org"],"url":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/author\/mmldev1\/"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}