How can local governments streamline Michigan FOIA and public records requests?

Most of the work in a public records request under Michigan FOIA is bookkeeping: logging when it arrived, counting business days, estimating fees on the required itemization form and keeping the file. Software can streamline nearly all of that. Deciding what's exempt is different, and the law expects a named person to sign that decision. Below: what Michigan FOIA requires of local governments, where the hours go, and which chores a tool can take off staff plates.

Everything about deadlines, fees and posting comes from Michigan's Freedom of Information Act (MCL 15.231 et seq. (opens in a new tab)) and applies only in Michigan. Other states have their own public records statutes.

What are the Michigan FOIA deadlines for local governments?

A public body has five business days after receiving a written request to grant it, deny it, grant part of it, or send a notice extending the deadline. One extension is allowed, for up to 10 more business days (MCL 15.235 (opens in a new tab)). The law treats townships, cities, villages and counties, and their boards and departments, as public bodies (MCL 15.232 (opens in a new tab)).

Sources: MCL 15.234 (opens in a new tab), 15.235 (opens in a new tab), 15.240 (opens in a new tab), 15.240a (opens in a new tab).

Appeals to a board or commission count as received at its next regular meeting. By contrast, the national FOIA gives federal agencies 20 working days (5 U.S.C. 552 (opens in a new tab)) and doesn't reach state or local records at all (DOJ (opens in a new tab)).

What does Michigan FOIA require on a public body's website?

Every public body must adopt written FOIA procedures and guidelines, plus a public summary in plain language. That summary explains how to submit, how to read the answer, deposits, fee calculations and how to appeal. Any public body with an official website has to post both documents there and keep them current (MCL 15.234(4) (opens in a new tab)).

This rule came from the 2014 amendments, Public Act 563, effective July 1, 2015. It has teeth. Without the procedures and summary freely available, a public body can't require deposits or charge fees. It still owes every requester an answer.

Two more website rules matter day to day:

• If something requested is already on the website, the response has to say so and, where practicable, give the exact page address.
• Posted records can't carry a charge for separating exempt material, and the itemization lists them apart from everything that isn't online.

The Michigan Townships Association publishes sample procedures, public summaries and itemization forms (opens in a new tab) for townships and counties.

FOIA isn't the only Michigan law that reaches the website. The Open Meetings Act's 18-hour homepage notice rule and the rest are summarized on our Michigan local government websites page.

How do Michigan FOIA fees and the itemization form work?

Michigan FOIA fees are capped and shown line by line. The procedures must include a standard form that lists and explains six components (MCL 15.234 (opens in a new tab)):

1. Labor to search for, locate and examine records
2. Labor to separate exempt from nonexempt information
3. Nonpaper physical media, such as a flash drive
4. Paper copies, no more than 10 cents a sheet for letter or legal size
5. Labor to duplicate or publish, including transferring digital records
6. Actual mailing costs

Labor is billed at the hourly wage of the lowest-paid employee capable of the task, no matter who actually does it. Time is counted in 15-minute blocks, partial blocks rounded down, and fringe benefits can add at most 50%. Search and separation labor is chargeable only when skipping it would mean "unreasonably high costs," and the public body has to identify those costs.

Lateness costs money too. When a reply misses the deadline and the delay was willful, or the letter plainly identified itself as a FOIA request, labor charges shrink 5% per day, up to 50%.

Why are public records requests taking more staff time?

Volume is climbing, and the work often sits with one person. In Ann Arbor, the chief deputy clerk reported 640 requests in 2023, 740 in 2024 and 860 partway through 2025. She now spends half her day on FOIA, up from a few hours when she started in 2021, according to the Eastern Echo (opens in a new tab). In that story, the clerk of Milan, a city of about 6,000, put her load at 50 to 60 requests a year.

Machine-written requests pile on. Somerset County, Pennsylvania got dozens of AI-generated Right-to-Know requests a day for weeks in 2024 (GovTech (opens in a new tab)). In June 2026, Chautauqua County, New York reported more than 600 requests that year, about double the prior year's pace. Its county attorney suspected AI tools were behind the jump (Post-Journal (opens in a new tab)).

Email searches are a big share of the labor. Michigan's Attorney General lists email and other electronic files among common public records (FOIA Handbook (opens in a new tab)). Format doesn't matter. What counts is whether the item served an official function.

Which parts of a FOIA request can software automate?

The parts that are clerical and repeatable:

• An online intake form asking for the name, address and contact details Michigan FOIA requires, plus a description. Everything lands in one log.
• Correct receipt dates, including the extra day for email, and automatic countdowns to response and extension deadlines.
• Reminders before day five, and again before an extended due date.
• The six-line fee itemization, filled from logged time, the lowest qualifying wage and page counts, rounded the way the statute requires.
• Templates for extension notices, deposits (with the 48-day due date the law requires in deposit notices) and denials that include the appeal language.
• A single folder per case holding the letter, reply and invoice for the full retention period.

If you want that bookkeeping off your plate, the FOIA Requests tool handles the online form, Michigan deadline tracking and itemized fees. It works like Request Tracker does for service calls: one shared queue for your staff, with status emails.

What can't automation do for public records requests?

It can't make the legal call. A denial must cite the legal basis for each exemption, describe what was removed, explain appeal rights using the word "appeal," and carry the signature of the responsible official (MCL 15.235 (opens in a new tab)). Software can suggest likely redactions. Staff, and often the attorney, still decide.

Redaction itself needs care. An NSA guide warned that drawing black boxes over text works on paper but not in electronic files, where the text can still be underneath (Route Fifty (opens in a new tab)). Use a tool that actually removes the text.

Nor can it judge whether a description is clear enough to locate anything, or whether a giant ask meets the "unreasonably high costs" test. Those calls belong to someone who knows the files.

Does posting records online reduce FOIA requests?

Possibly, but nobody has proven it. When the U.S. Justice Department piloted posting FOIA releases online in 2015, incoming counts rose at some agencies and fell at others. The department said it could "draw no conclusion" about the effect on volume (DOJ pilot assessment (opens in a new tab)).

In Michigan, posting still trims work per request. Anything already online can't carry a separation charge, so the reply can simply link to it. The statute also lets a public body share information without a written request, and tells employees to steer phone or counter callers to the website (MCL 15.234 (opens in a new tab)). Good candidates are things people ask for again and again: meeting minutes, budgets, contracts, ordinances and recurring reports.

A Document Center with folders and full-text search helps residents find them before filing anything.

Do released records have to meet ADA Title II accessibility rules?

Documents posted on a public website are web content under the ADA Title II rule, which uses WCAG 2.1 AA. The deadlines are April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 people or more, and April 26, 2028 for smaller governments and special districts (ADA.gov (opens in a new tab)). DOJ moved those dates once in April 2026 (Federal Register (opens in a new tab)), and the rule may still change.

There are exceptions. PDFs and other files posted before the deadline generally don't need remediation unless people still use them to apply for or reach a service. Archived content is exempt when it was created before the deadline, is kept only for reference, sits in a marked archive area and stays unchanged. Even then, anyone can ask for an accessible version.

This matters for a records library. The Justice Department reported that federal FOIA offices most often name accessibility prep as the thing holding back more posting. The fix is checking each file at upload, not years later. Our Accessibility page explains how.

How long do Michigan local governments keep FOIA files?

The FOIA coordinator keeps a copy of every written request for at least one year (MCL 15.233 (opens in a new tab)). General Schedule #35, the state's administrative records schedule for local government, was updated in August 2026. It keeps FOIA files one year after the response goes out or the denial is issued, covering correspondence, the released copy and billing (GS35, item 35.107 (opens in a new tab)).

Format is irrelevant to the schedule. DTMB says retention applies whether a record lives on paper, in email, in a database or as a digital image. Anything no approved schedule covers can't be destroyed without an agency-specific schedule. A good system stamps the retention date when a file closes and flags it when review comes due.

What should a Michigan local government set up first?

1. Confirm the procedures, public summary and itemization form are posted and up to date.
2. Put a Forms intake page beside them so submissions arrive with required contact details.
3. Log everything in one place with business-day deadlines.
4. Publish popular documents, checking each for accessibility on upload.
5. Apply GS35 retention when files close.

Other states differ. Pennsylvania allows five business days plus a 30-day extension (Pennsylvania Department of Aging (opens in a new tab)). Ohio sets no fixed number of days and requires a "reasonable period of time" (Ohio Auditor (opens in a new tab)). Build the clock around whichever statute applies.