Legal Services

	"Our county has received multiple public information requests from the same requestor regularly for several months. It’s taking up a lot of staff time, and we can’t afford to hire anyone else. What can we do?"

Can a county find relief from information requests requiring a large amount of personnel time? 

The commissioners court may establish monthly and yearly limits on the amount of time that county personnel are required to spend producing information for inspection or copying or in providing copies of information to the same requestor without recovering its costs. Tex. Gov’t Code §552.275 The county may not set a time limit that is less than 36 hours in each county fiscal year or less than 15 hours for a one-month period. County officials who have designated the same officer for public information may calculate time for purposes of this section collectively. For more information, see our Public Information Act Handbook.