PURSUANT TO THE PROVISIONS OF THE State Administrative Procedure Act, NOTICE is hereby given of the following proposed rule:
Proposed action:
This is a consensus rule making to amend Part 311 of Title 8 NYCRR.
Statutory authority:
Education Law, section 355(2)(b)
Subject:
Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).
Purpose:
To bring NYCRR into compliance with article 6 of Public Officers Law (Freedom of Information Law).
Text of proposed rule:
§ 311.1 Designation of records access officer.
(a) The chancellor for the central administration of the university and the chief administrative officer of each State-operated institution are responsible for insuring compliance with the regulations herein. For the purposes of central administration of the university, the Vice Chancellor and Secretary of the University [Executive Director, Central Administration Services], or designee, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246, FOIL@suny.edu, shall serve as records access officer. A records access officer shall be designated by the chief administrative officer of each campus. For State-operated institutions, the [The] name, title, [and] business address and email address of the records access officer may be obtained from the office of the chief administrative officer of each campus.
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§ 311.4 Requests for public access to records.
(d) Within five business days of the receipt of a written request for a record reasonably described, the records access officer shall make such record available to the person requesting it, deny such request in writing or furnish a written acknowledgment of the receipt of such request and a statement of the approximate date, which shall be reasonable under the circumstances of the request, when such request will be granted or denied. If the records access officer determines to grant a request in whole or in part, and if circumstances prevent disclosure to the person requesting the record or records within twenty business days from the date of the acknowledgement of the receipt of the request, the records access officer shall state, in writing, both the reason for the inability to grant the request within twenty business days and a date certain within a reasonable period, depending on the circumstances, when the request will be granted in whole or in part. [If the records access officer does not provide or deny access to the record sought within five business days of receipt of a request, he or she shall furnish a written acknowledgment of receipt of the request and the approximate date when the request will be granted or denied. If access to records is neither granted nor denied within 10 business days after the date of acknowledgment of receipt of a request, the request may be construed as a denial of access that may be appealed.]
(e) The records access officer shall accept requests for records submitted in the form of electronic mail and shall respond to such requests by electronic mail, provided that the written requests do not seek a response in some other form.
(f) Failure by the records access officer to comply with the time limitations described herein shall constitute a denial of access.
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Text of proposed rule and any required statements and analyses may be obtained from:
Wendy Kowalczyk, Associate Counsel, State University of New York, University Plaza, S-313, Albany, NY, (518) 443-5400, e-mail: wendy.kowalczyk@suny.edu
Data, views or arguments may be submitted to:
Same as above.
Public comment will be received until:
45 days after publication of this notice.
Consensus Rule Making Determination
This rulemaking change will not be of interest to any public or private entity because the majority of proposed changes conform to non-discretionary statutory provisions and bring Part 311 of 8 NYCRR (Public Access to Records of State University of New York) into compliance with Article 6 of Public Officers Law (Freedom of Information Law). One change, identification of the records access officer, is technical and non-controversial.
Job Impact Statement
No job impact statement is submitted with this notice because this proposal does not impose any adverse economic impact on existing jobs or employment opportunities. The proposal addresses bringing Part 311 of 8 NYCRR (Public Access to Records of State University of New York) into compliance with Article 6 of Public Officers Law (Freedom of Information Law).
