WashCOG identifies Winners and Sinners in records responses
Analysis: Which agencies are speedy and which are slowpokes in answering records requests?
By George Erb, WashCOG Secretary
Some agencies in Washington state are known for completing public records requests quickly. Other agencies are confirmed slowpokes.
Now we know who’s fast and who’s slow, based on annual numbers the agencies themselves reported to a state legislative committee between 2020 and 2024.
The Washington Coalition for Open Government is releasing its occasional “Winners & Sinners” list of agencies. They are ranked by the average number of days they took to complete records requests over that five-year span.
The shortest average turnaround time again belongs to the North City Water District. The public utility in Shoreline completed its records requests in an average of 0.2 days. North City was also the quickest agency on our previous list, published two years ago.
But the utility fields only a handful of records requests annually. Over five years, it responded to four to six requests a year.
In sharp contrast, the second-fastest agency on our list, NORCOM 911, handles thousands of requests. The emergency dispatch center handled 3,813 police and fire calls for northeast King County just in 2024. Over the five years, NORCOM 911 completed its records requests in an average of 0.9 days.
The slowest agency over the same period was Sumner School District No. 320. It completed its records requests in an average of 213.4 days. That’s about seven months.
The school district’s reported average even exceeded one year in 2022. That’s when Sumner High School’s former basketball coach was put on leave amid allegations that he sexually abused his players. Spikes in turnaround times for records requests often coincide with controversies, when the public and the press use the Public Records Act to get information. If the coach controversy caused the 2022 spike, there may be another documented for 2025, when a jury found former coach Jacob “Jake” Jackson guilty of rape and molestation, among other crimes.
Another slowpoke was The Evergreen State College, the public university outside of Olympia. It completed its records requests in an average of 142.9 days.
The college at the time was beset by its own controversies. A student died of carbon monoxide poisoning in campus housing in 2023. A search for a new college president collapsed when all three finalists withdrew; Evergreen rebounded with an internal hire.
WashCOG compiled five years of data gathered and published by Washington state’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee. We omitted agencies that made reporting errors. Only agencies that submitted reports for at least three of the five years were included in the final tally of 173 state and local agencies.
An analysis of this year’s list shows:
A gradual increase in the amount of time reporting agencies needed to complete records requests. With each succeeding year, more agencies got worse than got better.
Nine agencies got worse every single year. They included the state House of Representatives and the state Department of Corrections.
Five agencies improved every single year. They included Auburn School District No. 408 and the state Office of Financial Management.
The average of the five-year turnaround times for all agencies was 26 days.
The time needed to complete requests spiked sharply at Lewis County PUD No. 1. Between 2023 and 2024, the agency’s average turnaround time soared 691% to 392.1 days. There was a controversy in 2024: A utility commissioner was charged with attempting to bribe the agency’s general manager. Michael Jay Kelly, now a former commissioner, pleaded innocent.
WashCOG’s complete Transparency Weather Report analysis for 2020 through 2024 is available here.
