Chief FOIA Officer Report

Department of the Treasury

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Chief FOIA Officer Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents

Message from the Chief FOIA Officer...........................................................................................................1

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY: LEGEND OF ABBREVIATIONS..................................................................3

Part I: Steps Taken to Apply the Presumption of Openness.........................................................................5

Part II: Steps Taken to Ensure that Your Agency has an Effective System for Responding to Requests......9

Part III: Steps Taken to Increase Proactive Disclosure................................................................................11

Part IV: Steps Taken to Greater Utilize Technology....................................................................................15

1. Electronic receipt of FOIA requests: ...............................................................................................15

2. Electronic tracking of FOIA requests...............................................................................................16

3. Electronic processing of FOIA requests: .........................................................................................17

4. Electronic preparation of your Annual FOIA Report:......................................................................18

Part V: Steps Taken to Reduce Backlogs and Improve Timeliness in Responding to Requests..................19

1. If your agency has a backlog, report whether the backlog is decreasing.......................................19

2. If there has not been a reduction in the backlog as measured by either of these metrics, describe 

why that has occurred. ...........................................................................................................................20

3. Describe the steps your agency is taking to reduce any backlogs and to improve timeliness in 

responding to requests and administrative appeals. .............................................................................21

Spotlight on Success....................................................................................................................................25
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Message from the Chief FOIA Officer 

The Department of the Treasury has made significant progress in fulfilling the President’s commitment to 

open and transparent government, providing access to as much information as possible while ensuring the 

protection of personal privacy, confidential, privileged, or proprietary information. With the Department’s 

activities in support of the economic recovery efforts, we have increased the proactive disclosure of 

information of wide interest, including, for example, the calendars of key officials and information on 

meetings related to the financial reform efforts. We also continue to pursue opportunities to be more 

responsive to the most frequent requesters of information to determine categories of information that 

are appropriate for proactive disclosure. These activities will be discussed in further detail in the sections 

that follow. 

We are also continuing to make process improvements to eliminate the backlog of FOIA requests. The 

Department completed a Lean Six Sigma review of the entire FOIA process from end to end, which 

identified processing redundancies. This allowed us to reduce the amount of time required to process 

FOIA requests in FY10. We also continued to pursue aggressive backlog reduction targets, realizing a 29% 

reduction in the Department’s backlog in FY10. Since FY06 we have reduced our FOIA backlog by over 

79%. 

The Department uses a decentralized FOIA processing approach. Accordingly, each Treasury bureau has 

the responsibility for FOIA processes within the bureau, with the Department providing oversight and 

guidance. In addition to information on the Department’s overall work and FOIA trends, we have included 

significant highlights from various Treasury bureaus in this report. 

I look forward to continuing to work with the Treasury bureaus and offices to improve processes and to 

further advance the principles of open and transparent government in the Treasury Department. 

Dan Tangherlini

Assistant Secretary for Management and 

Chief Financial Officer

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

2,022

1,292

718

585

419

Treasury FOIA Backlog Trend Department 

Wide

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Fiscal Year Legend
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DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY: LEGEND OF ABBREVIATIONS

The Departmental Offices (DO)

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB)

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)

Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP)

Financial Management Service (FMS)

Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

United States Mint (MINT)

Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD)

Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS)

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA)

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)
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Part I: Steps Taken to Apply the Presumption of Openness 

The Department of the Treasury has taken steps, and continues to look for opportunities, to enhance the 

quality and amount of information provided to the public. The Department creates a vast amount of 

information in the course of performing mission critical duties, and has focused this past year on providing 

the most relevant information to the public on activities supporting the nation’s economy, through 

practices including proactive disclosure of information on FinancialStability.gov and via Treasury.gov for 

Wall Street reform activities.

Describe how the President’s FOIA Memorandum and the Attorney General’s FOIA guidelines have been 

publicized throughout your agency.

The Department incorporated President Obama’s FOIA memorandum and Attorney General Holder’s 

FOIA guidelines into the Department’s FOIA Handbook which is published on the FOIA web page

(http://www.treasury.gov/FOIA/Pages/index.aspx). An online training module was also created on

the Treasury Learning Management System which included Privacy and OPEN Government concepts. 

The Handbook has also been published on the Treasury.gov web site. Treasury bureaus such as 

FinCEN, FMS and the MINT conducted briefings for officials on the President’s FOIA memorandum, the 

Attorney General’s FOIA guidelines, and the Open Government Initiative. 

In addition to posting the memorandum and guidelines on the web site, the IRS Records Information 

Management Office renovated its program web site to serve as a teaching aid and policy repository 

which reinforces and emphasizes open government principles. IRS also developed a collaborative 

software site to host the day-to-day operational workload for both Headquarters Records Managers 

and Remote Area Records Managers in the field. Both sites reinforce the Administration’s approach to 

openness. The web site is hosted on www.irs.gov, (keyword “open government”). The IRS is making it 

easier for the public to find information to help build transparency, participation and collaboration in 

their operations. In establishing a system of transparency, IRS offers several ways for taxpayers, 

practitioners and stakeholders to participate and collaborate with the government including in person, 

by phone and on the Web, which all support the President’s open government concepts, as well as the 

new OMB Guidance M-11-02 "Sharing Data While Protecting Privacy.” 

As an example of publicizing the memorandum and guidelines, the IRS Disclosure Office produced 

several videos in 2010 for internal instruction that highlighted the President’s FOIA memorandum and 

the Attorney General’s FOIA guidelines with an emphasis on:

o promoting the presumption of openness, 

o encouraging IRS employees to share releasable records with taxpayers without requiring a FOIA 

request, and

o sharing specific guidelines for when to withhold information that would harm tax administration, 

if released.

Additionally, the IRS:

o provided a series of articles for compliance employee technical digests encouraging the direct 

release of information without the need for a FOIA request, and

o updates to their library of articles for employees relating to the FOIA and the principles described 

in the President’s FOIA memorandum and Attorney General’s FOIA guidelines.
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The Disclosure Services office meets monthly with the bureau FOIA contacts to discuss issues and 

disseminate information. Both the President’s memorandum and the Attorney General’s guidelines 

have been distributed and discussed at these FOIA Council meetings. These sessions serve to further 

educate FOIA contacts about the foreseeable harm standard. In addition to these activities, the 

Department proactively releases FOIA request logs for Departmental Offices.

What training has been attended and / or conducted on the new FOIA Guidelines?

In FY10 the Treasury Department conducted a number of training sessions on the new FOIA guidelines 

as well as transparency and open government principles overall. During the Department’s activities in 

April 2010 for Records and Information Management Month (RIMM), the Office of Privacy, 

Transparency, and Records (OPTR) hosted multiple training sessions and panel discussions highlighting 

the many aspects, challenges, and impact of transparency and open government principles on FOIA, 

records, and information management activities across the Department. All of the training sessions 

throughout the month were available to other government agencies as well for purposes of sharing of 

best practices. Treasury hosted a representative from the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of 

Information Policy (OIP) to discuss Attorney General Holder’s guidelines and implementation. 

Treasury also hosted a panel discussion session that included the Director of the Office of Government 

Information Services (OGIS), and open government public interest group representatives to discuss 

how agencies can increase information disclosure while ensuring that privacy information is 

protected.

Treasury created and deployed two new online training tools that include information on the 

President’s memorandum and the Attorney General’s guidelines, as well as FOIA, privacy, and records 

principles and practices, and how these principles interrelate and support transparency and open 

government. These courses are conveniently available to all Treasury employees on Treasury’s online 

learning management system.

The IRS conducted specific training as follows: 

• Office of Service wide Policy, Directives and Electronic Research conducted training on the FOIA, 

including specific emphasis on the Administration’s presumption of openness

• Disclosure Office updated its training materials for IRS FOIA professionals

• IRS Office of Chief Counsel conducted document review training

• IRS Disclosure Headquarters FOIA Office conducted training with all IRS FOIA coordinators

How has your agency created or modified your internal guidance to reflect the presumption of 

openness?

In addition to the efforts described above, Treasury continues to encourage more proactive disclosure 

of information across the Department. For example: 

• The Office of Financial Stability incorporated a contract provision to provide proposed redactions 

of the contract within days after award.

• IRS has updated its FOIA procedures manual to incorporate the presumption of openness, citing 

the President’s memorandum and Attorney General’s guidelines and applicable provisions of the 

OPEN Government Act.
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To what extent has your agency made discretionary releases of otherwise exempt information?

Discretionary releases have not been specifically tracked but are considered in the analysis across 

Treasury operating bureaus. DO has amended our tracking system for exemptions to include a drop 

down item to indicate “discretionary releases”, which can be further explained in a justification field of 

which exemption is waived and whether foreseeable harm was considered.

Other examples of the Department’s discretionary release activities include IRS Document 6209, "IRS 

Processing Codes and Information,” which underwent an extensive review to eliminate unnecessary 

redactions. In addition, the OCC had only 300 cases of over 2000 requests in which exemptions were 

applied, exemplifying transparency and openness. 

What exemptions would have covered the information that was released as a matter of discretion?

Exemption 5 was the exemption most scrutinized by the Department as a starting point for 

discretionary disclosure opportunities. This approach enabled the Department to make progress in this 

area, as illustrated by the decrease in the number of times the following exemptions were applied in 

FY10 compared to FY09. As illustrated in the Department’s annual FOIA reports, DO achieved 

significant reductions in the application of the following exemptions:

Exemption 2 Exemption 4 Exemption5

FY 2010 15 26 30

FY 2009 56 64 60

The IRS continues to closely scrutinize the use of exemption (b) (2), that is, the so-called ‘low’ (b) (2) 

where there is no risk of circumvention of any legal requirement, and exemptions (b) (5) and (b) (7) 

(E), to minimize the application of these exemptions as much as possible.

How does your agency review records to determine whether discretionary releases are possible?

Treasury applies the foreseeable harm standard across the Department as FOIA requests are 

processed and exemptions considered. Some components use a systemic approach such as:

• IRS management reviews and monitors requests in the IRS Disclosure Quality Management 

System (DQMS). DQMS is an independent process that reviews a sample of cases each month and 

validates them against standards for procedural and technical accuracy, monitors trends, and 

identifies policy and procedural discrepancies for remediation. 

• OCC analyzes each response on a case-by-case basis to determine if anything can be produced as a 

discretionary release. If so, the program office is engaged in a negotiation process to achieve 

some discretionary release.
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Describe any other initiatives undertaken by your agency to ensure that the presumption of openness is 

being applied.

The Department of the Treasury strongly supports increased transparency in government and has 

made great strides in advancing transparency and open government principles. Examples include the 

proactive publication of senior officials’ calendars, such as for the Secretary and Consumer Financial 

Protection Bureau (CFPB) activities. 

In particular, Treasury has been committed to implementing the historic Dodd-Frank Wall Street 

Reform and Consumer Protection Act in an open and transparent manner. Treasury proactively 

discloses meetings with private sector individuals or entities and nongovernmental organizations, with 

the exception of members of the media, which are set up for the purpose of discussing policy 

implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act. This disclosure policy applies to in-person meetings with 

employees in the Treasury Departmental Offices who are at the rank of Deputy Assistant Secretary or 

higher, including Counselors to the Secretary and Special Advisors to the Secretary. Meeting 

disclosures are posted to the Department’s FOIA reading room and include information such as: the 

date of the meeting, names of all covered Treasury participants, names and affiliations of all nonTreasury participants, and a list of the primary topics of conversation related to Dodd-Frank 

implementation. 

To support these efforts, the Department is working to amend its FOIA regulations to include 

provisions of the OPEN Government Act and policy memos; Incorporating systemic process reviews of 

the business submitter process before the requests arrive; and ensuring all new employees working 

on FOIA take the online training to fully understand their vital roles and responsibilities for FOIA 

processing.

Department-Wide Comparison of Releases (as a percentage)

Fiscal Year Full Grants Partial Grants Full Denials

FY 09 71% 25% 4%

FY 10 66% 29% 5%
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Part II: Steps Taken to Ensure that Your Agency has an Effective System for 

Responding to Requests

Describe the steps your agency has taken to ensure that your system for responding to 

requests is effective and efficient. This section should include a discussion of how your 

agency has addressed the key roles played by the broad spectrum of agency personnel 

who work with the FOIA staff have sufficient IT support. To do so, answer the questions 

below and then include any additional information that you would like to describe how 

your agency ensures that your FOIA system is efficient and effective.

Treasury has made significant progress to improve FOIA processing systems, as discussed in this 

report. DO completed a Lean Six Sigma process review and has implemented many of the findings 

from that review. In conjunction with the Department’s Enterprise Content Management (ECM) 

effort, the assignment and tracking system has been replaced with a new cloud-based solution that 

can be easily shared by other offices so that requests and reporting can be dispersed in a 

decentralized system. TTB has also started using this tracking system. The solution includes the ability 

for the public to submit FOIA requests on-line and check the status of those requests. The final system 

certification is underway and the on-line submission feature is expected to be launched by the third 

quarter of FY11. The U.S. Mint is also exploring the cloud solution and actively pursuing 

demonstrations and testing of the solution as a viable option.

The tracking and assignment solution is just the first step in this major redesign effort. The ECM 

initiative is being leveraged to develop and implement an electronic collaborative processing workflow 

based on the streamlined process re-engineering. These workflow findings integrate with the tracking 

system to facilitate more timely processing and reporting.

Do FOIA professionals within your agency have sufficient IT support?

IT support for electronic searches to assist with gathering and collecting information is provided in DO 

through the CIO with additional contract support assistance. The Treasury Web team also assists with 

providing information access through the Treasury Web site. All Treasury components have sufficient 

IT support with downloading to the Web and conducting searches.

Describe how your agency’s FOIA professionals interact with your OPEN Government team.

The Deputy Assistant Secretary for Privacy, Transparency, and Records presides over the OPEN 

Government team and also oversees the FOIA operations at Treasury for the Chief FOIA Officer.

Describe the steps your agency has taken to assess whether adequate staffing is being devoted to 

responding to FOIA requests.

Oftentimes, FOIA duties in some of the Departmental Offices are duties as assigned in addition to an 

employee’s core responsibilities. Training new and rotating personnel in these duties as an added role 

is frequently challenging, and requires periodic training. Offices also use contractors experienced in

FOIA matters to support their FOIA administration obligations. DO conducted a Lean Six sigma review 

of its FOIA administration process from the point of receipt, through scope, search, review, and 
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response. The elimination of redundancies and a shared technology solution for tracking, licensed to 

the points of contact to streamline the response process, helps decrease the hours required to 

process cases. If the number of cases received increases, a correlating increase in staffing would be 

necessary to meet that demand. 

Some components have a more centralized FOIA process; although the volume of requests may not be 

as large. The regional approach to FOIA processing at the IRS has led to developments in their 

technologies to broadcast tracking solutions so that efficiencies may be gained regionally.

Describe any other steps your agency has undertaken to ensure that your FOIA system operates 

efficiently and effectively.

A forensic software tool is being piloted through our Enterprise Content Management Committee and 

leveraged with the IRS. The goal is to seek tools which may also be used to conduct searches for the 

FOIA redaction process which may be used for E-discovery. Researching the appropriate tool on an 

enterprise basis that will provide not only discovery possibilities but FOIA search possibilities has been 

an ongoing exploration.

DO has tested a “FOIA Citizen Website” linked to a cloud solution in which the requester accesses an 

electronic Web page, creates new FOIA requests, gets a status inquiry on an existing request, and 

registers a FOIA account with DO Treasury. This product is also being tested in some Treasury 

bureaus.

IRS

At the IRS, a quality review system (DQMS) evaluates overall case processing and ensures that 

responses to requesters are accurate, complete and timely. Significant errors or trends are evaluated 

and technical and procedural guidance is given to Disclosure personnel in all offices. An inventory 

balancing process evaluates the caseload in each field office and work is reassigned among offices 

nationwide. This helps to anticipate and address situations where there is a reduction in office 

personnel, cases involving a large volume of records that must be reviewed (which limits the time 

available for other work), and other issues or situations that require a transfer of casework among 

offices.

The IRS also published internal communications newsletter articles on “Focus on FOIA,” “Quality 

Corner” and “Tips n’Tricks.” IRS developed 39 articles since February 2009 for Disclosure staff on 

various request-related subjects. Newsletter articles target emerging issues and trends developed 

from internal quality reviewing and from questions received from field staff. Other activities: 

• Developed guidance placed on the website with directions on how to properly prepare a FOIA 

request, ensuring that FOIA requesters know how to submit a perfected request.

• Implemented an automated FOIA processing system (AFOIA) to: 

Centralize the receipt and control of all requests;

o Process requests more efficiently including the precedent setting scanning of all FOIA requests 

at one central location and on-line redaction;

o Assign a request to any Disclosure employee in the country without regard to geographical 

boundaries;

o Centralize the imaging of responsive records;

o Maintain databases of responsive records, requests, and all correspondence to and from the 

requester.
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Part III: Steps Taken to Increase Proactive Disclosure

Describe the steps your agency has taken to increase the amount of material that is 

available on your agency website, including examples of proactive disclosures that have 

been made since issuance of the new FOIA Guidelines. In doing so, answer the questions 

listed below and describe any additional steps taken by your agency to make proactive disclosures of 

information.

Proactive disclosure is our policy and is emphasized in standards set by the Secretary, particularly 

concerning the Office of Financial Stability disclosures on contracts.

Has your agency added new material to your agency website since last year?

DO: Calendars of high officials have been posted. Contract information has been posted, particularly 

those from the Office of Financial Stability. The Web site for Treasury (DO) has been redesigned.

Meetings held with the public under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act and the Register of the 

Dodd-Frank Act are new also. Most of the components have added new information the most 

common being contracts awarded.

IRS: The additional information on the Web site is calendar information previously disclosed. 

However, an additional official has been added this year. IRS procurement solicitations, including 

Requests for Proposal (RFPs), Requests for Information (RFIs) and Requests for Agreement (RFAs), and 

procurement contracts have also been added. Links to hot news and information that partners need 

is available at the Partner and Volunteer Resource Center on IRS.gov.

What types of records have been posted?

DO: The above calendar information is being made available proactively. The Senior Advisor for the 

CFPB is also making calendar and meeting information available proactively through the FOIA Web 

page.

IRS: New categories of posted information are as follows:

• An Outreach Corner page offering IRS partners electronic communication materials to use when 

reaching out to the people they serve. 

• Information about the partnership between the IRS and Free File Alliance, including an application 

allowing taxpayers to search for a Free File company to prepare and file a federal tax return and 

an application for Free File fill-able forms that allow taxpayers to prepare and file federal tax 

returns online.

• Information relating to e-services such as: descriptions of the products, FAQs, updates, and 

changes to products, taxpayer Advocate Service toolkits to assist taxpayers with various tax issues. 

• The National Taxpayer Advocate Annual Report, with the Taxpayer Advocate Service 

Objectives Report to Congress, the National Taxpayer Advocate’s testimony to Congress and 

speeches on various topics

• Updated information on the activities associated with the tax preparer compliance strategy.

• Audit Techniques Guides that describe the process and procedures for audits of specific industries
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• Qualified Therapeutic Discovery Project Allocations that provide the amounts of all credits and 

grants awarded to applicants.

• Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 Tax Provisions, Small Business Health Care Tax Credit, Guidelines 

for IRS Exempt Organizations Voluntary Compliance Program to allow participants to avoid 

revocation of their tax exempt status.

• Videos about the appeals process and taxpayer appeal rights directed to tax practitioners and the

public, Appeals Technical Guidance–International Index, listing all Appeals Technical Guidance 

related issues, including contact information.

• Corporate applications, purchase card holder lists, comment letters on regulations and Privacy 

Impact assessments are other types of records commonly published.

The IRS Open Government web page also provides useful information about avenues for taxpayers, 

practitioners and stakeholders to participate in the IRS decision-making process and to collaborate 

with IRS and its partners to improve operations.

OTS: Consumer information is now provided in Spanish.

Give examples of types of records your agency now posts that used to be available only by making a 

FOIA request.

IRS: provides the following information proactively which formerly required a FOIA request:

• Procurement contracts.

• Audit Techniques Guides – posted three additional guides during 2010.

• Transaction Codes Pocket Guide – an abbreviated guide to transaction codes used to identify 

transactions reported on IRS transcripts.

• IRS Document 6209, “IRS Processing Codes and Information” – a detailed compilation, including 

descriptions, of processing codes used in IRS tax accounting systems.

• Legal Advice Issued to Program Managers – legal advice, signed by attorneys in the National Office 

of the Office of Chief Counsel and issued to Internal Revenue Service personnel who are national 

program executives and managers.

• Non Taxpayer Specific “Informal” Chief Counsel Advice (CCA) – legal advice, requested and 

responded to informally, usually by email. IRS posts these CCA systemically with “formal” CCA and

other written determinations.

The IRS has posted 35 open format data sets to www.data.gov and has received favorable feedback 

on several of them.

What system do you have in place to routinely identify records that are appropriate for posting?

IRS has identified numerous record types for routine publication that are reviewed, edited and posted 

systemically. See (DQMS) above.

How do you utilize social media in disseminating information?

DO: continuing to expand the use of social media to disseminate information, with accounts on 

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flikr, and MySpace.
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IRS: provides Twitter news feeds in both English and Spanish and also uses Twitter to reach out to the 

tax professional community, the news media and for recruitment. The IRS Taxpayer Advocate uses 

Twitter to communicate with its audience. The IRS uses YouTube video channels to provide short, 

informative videos on various tax related topics in English, American Sign Language (ASL) and a variety 

of foreign languages. Since we first launched YouTube in August 2009, our channels have had over 1 

million views. The IRS has also created audio files on a variety of tax related topics for use in podcasts. 

These are located on IRS.gov and on iTunes. IRS also provides ad banner type widgets that can be 

placed on websites, blogs or social media networks to direct others to IRS.gov for information. 

Departmental Offices, OCC, and MINT also use Web 2.0 applications for information dissemination.

Describe any other steps taken to increase proactive disclosures at your agency.

IRS Human Capital Office uses Facebook as a recruiting tool.
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Part IV: Steps Taken to Greater Utilize Technology

Treasury has made efforts through its partnership with the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) 

Committee to leverage as many technological tools across the Department as possible so that integrated 

functions occur at the Department-wide level. Some of the solutions being brokered are case 

management solutions, records management solutions, search tools, and forensic e-discovery tools.

1. Electronic receipt of FOIA requests: 

What proportions of the components within your agency which receive FOIA requests have the 

capability to receive such requests electronically? 

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency was the first to pioneer online FOIA submissions at 

Treasury. From the web page, requesters have the ability to submit FOIA requests and check the 

status of a request and receive online help through FAQ’s designed to make the requester system 

self-reliant. DO has created a FOIA Citizen Web portal similar to that of OCC except that it is a 

cloud hosted solution. The advantage of the hosted solution, from an ECM standpoint, is to 

leverage the host through licensing so that components may opt into the host solution. The 

Department is still looking at the most effective solutions for enabling the remaining bureaus to 

also receive on-line submissions if possible, including TTB, BPD, BEP, MINT, OTS, IRS, and FinCEN. 

Currently these bureaus can only receive requests by mail, fax, or as a scanned document with 

signature via email. 

To what extent have you increased the number of components doing so since the filing of your last 

Chief FOIA Officer Report?

DO is implementing a FOIA Citizen Web portal to allow for the public to submit their requests 

directly on-line. The pilot of the portal, an electronic submission FOIA Citizen Web page on a 

cloud solution, may be leveraged by bureaus. Three out of eleven bureaus will receive electronic 

submissions. 

IRS does not currently accept electronic submissions 

because a majority of their requests are for tax records. 

Many requests require requesters to provide proof of 

identity and to demonstrate they have rights to access records which require the submission of 

signed documents. The IRS is preparing for the implementation of the Enterprise Authentication 

Initiative that will authenticate first party requesters and allow for the submission of requests for 
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confidential information electronically. At this point, however, there is no mechanism to accept 

electronic requests through the IRS website. The IRS does accept requests that are faxed or 

submitted by e-mail. Because there is currently no security-approved electronic authentication 

system in place, IRS does not offer a web-based electronic form to submit requests.

What methods does your agency use to receive requests electronically?

As discussed earlier, the OCC has an on-line submission capability via their tracking system and DO 

will utilize their cloud solution for on-line submission.

2. Electronic tracking of FOIA requests

What proportion of components within your agency which receive FOIA requests have the 

capability to track such requests electronically?

Department wide the bureaus/components each have a method of electronically tracking 

requests but our electronic solutions vary, from non-FOIA MS suite solutions to tailored FOIA 

specific solutions, which are commercial off -the-shelf solutions, to a cloud Web- hosted solution.

The Department of the Treasury replaced its previous proprietary, internally- hosted system for 

assigning, tracking, and reporting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the 

Departmental Offices (DO) with a cloud-based tracking solution. The vendor created a private 

cloud to host Treasury’s data. This solution offers many advantages, compared to the previous 

system. The previous system was accessible only by the headquarters (DO) disclosure services 

staff which resulted in time lags for program offices to receive status reports of their caseloads, 

and minimized the number of employees that had to do all of the data entry. This approach 

provides the following advantages for the Department:

Accessibility. This solution can be accessed by any computer through Internet web browser 

including through remote access. Users need a license to log in but no software installation or 

special hardware is required. All users have access to real time data and are able to directly input 

the case information, status changes, backup documentation and statistics for individual cases, 

run reports, and data queries at any time.

Scalability. This solution can service a variety of office sizes. It is functional within a program 

office, an individual component/bureau, or an entire agency. Time to live deployment is very fast. 

The original deployment for headquarters (DO) was only 60 days from date of contract award to a

live system. Adding individual users is very fast as it only requires procuring additional user 

licenses.

Automation. This solution can automatically run customized reports weekly, monthly, and 

annually. These reports can be run by any user at any time.

Flexibility. This solution has the ability to query any data field that is collected through a robust 

advanced find function. This allows users to create and save their own customized reports. These 

reports can be run by any user at any time. 

Usability. This solution is built on a platform and is compatible with a suite of other office 

products commonly available to make integration seamless.
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To what extent have you increased the number of components doing so since the filing of your last 

Chief FOIA Officer Report?

Three bureaus have increased the electronic submission option; DO acquired a cloud solution with 

the online submission capability. TTB is purchasing a license to use and leverage the cloud 

solution. OCC purchased a capability from a FOIA specific software vendor last year.

What methods does your agency use to track requests electronically?

See above item. DO has a cloud solution from a FOIA-specific cloud vendor. The advantage is a 

cloud hosted solution that allows license access to meet DO’s decentralized needs, provides Web 

access, requires less server space on Treasury sites, all with robust reporting features.

Bureau-specific tracking solutions include:

DO- cloud solution 

TTB- cloud solution 

BPD- non-FOIA Specific

FMS- non-FOIA specific

MINT- exploring the cloud solution

IRS- AFOIA (Automated Freedom of Information Act): currently in implementation

OCC-FOIA specific tracking software

BEP- non-FOIA specific

OTS- non-FOIA specific

TIGTA: FOIA specific tracking software

FinCEN- Data Map for Electronically Stored Information (ESI) to assist in maintaining and

locating electronic records and contacting employees responsible for databases.

3. Electronic processing of FOIA requests:

What proportion of components within your agency which receive FOIA requests have the 

capability to process such requests electronically?

DO: a collaborative software tool is used for sharing information (in progress). Another software 

feature is used for electronic redaction. DO is piloting a forensic solution for E-Discovery which is 

being evaluated to assist with FOIA searches and to possibly leverage this tool. Generally, all 

bureaus have online redaction capability.

To what extent have you increased the number of components doing so since the filing of your last 

Chief FOIA Officer Report?

DO: increased the use of electronic search and submission, through contract vendors and 

software vendors that conduct forensics. 

IRS: electronic tracking for a number of years, although IRS is completing the implementation 

phase of a new, more robust tracking system that includes electronic processing as well. AFOIA 

provides document scanning for original receipts and for responsive records. Once scanned, FOIA 

processing from case assignment through review, redaction and response preparation is 

electronic.
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What methods does your agency use to process requests electronically?

DO uses an electronic redaction tool which may be upgraded; a storage database on a 

collaborative software tool is being tested; E-discovery forensic tools currently piloted are being 

leveraged. A contractor using search software is available to assist with electronic search.

4. Electronic preparation of your Annual FOIA Report:

What type of technology does your agency use to prepare your agency Annual FOIA Report i.e. 

specify whether the technology is FOIA specific or a generic data- processing system.

DO: has acquired a cloud tracking solution which enables DO to populate data into an annual 

report format. A cloud vendor has created a specific FOIA solution, a tracking tool.

See also 2. above for component technology.

If you are not satisfied with your existing system to prepare your annual FOIA Report, describe the 

steps you have taken to increase your use of technology for next year.

The disadvantage with the cloud is that all bureaus have not elected access by license so that data 

calls and the entry of data manually is still necessary. Our previous non- FOIA specific based 

solution built on a platform was outgrown and did not meet the needs of a decentralized system 

because of limited access capability. Although data could be derived for annual reports; it could 

not populate a report directly. 

IRS: AFOIA has the capability to produce a formatted annual report; however, IRS has not used 

that feature for report preparation because part of our staff still uses EDIMS, which is not able to 

generate the final report electronically and because AFOIA will require a significant number of 

enhancements to its reporting capability. 
19

Part V: Steps Taken to Reduce Backlogs and Improve Timeliness in Responding to 

Requests

Refer to Section XII of the Annual report. 

1. If your agency has a backlog, report whether the backlog is decreasing. 

The reduction should be measured in two ways. First the number of backlogged requests and 

backlogged administrative appeals that remain pending at the end of the fiscal year decreased or 

increased, and by how many, when compared with last fiscal year. Second, report whether your 

agency closed in FY2010 the ten oldest of those pending requests and appeals from FY 09 and if not, 

report on how many your agency did close.

Treasury intends to further reduce the backlog of 419 requests that were remaining at the end of 

FY10. Treasury has set target goals for FY11 and reporting continues Treasury-wide on a monthly 

basis to the Chief FOIA Officer by all components for monitoring the backlog reduction progress 

towards these goals. 

Number of Backlogged Appeals 

as of End of Fiscal Year

Number of Backlogged Requests 

as of End of Fiscal Year

DO 30 282

TTB 0 0

OCC 8 10

BEP 0 0

FMS 0 0

IRS 11 118

MINT 0 0

BPD 0 0

OTS 1 9

TIGTA 0 0

FinCEN 0 0

Agency Overall 50 419
20

Backlog at end of Fiscal Year 2010: Requests: 282, Appeals: 30.

As the figure blow illustrates, Departmental Offices continues a downward trend on the FOIA

pending backlog for FY 2010. The number of appeals doubled to 30 total appeals.

OCC had an increase in backlog at the FY 10 which just barely reached double digits.

 

The 10 oldest pending cases from the previous fiscal year, 2009, were entirely closed. Beyond that 

list, DO closed a total of 41 pending cases greater than 5 years old largely through the efforts of the 

Office of Foreign Assets Control. The 10 oldest appeals had a 30% reduction in that list. The oldest 

appeal was one of the cases to be closed during this fiscal year. 

2. If there has not been a reduction in the backlog as measured by either of these 

metrics, describe why that has occurred. 

In doing so, answer the following questions and then include any other additional explanation:

Is the backlog increase a result of an increase in the number of incoming requests or appeals?

The number of appeal backlog cases rose along with the carryover from the previous year. 

Additionally, another 23 cases were received in FY2010. DO consistently processed 20 appeals in 

fiscal years, 2009 and 2010, respectively. One possibility for the appeal backlog is the carryover plus 

the additional requests are causing an increase.

The OCC has noted an increase in the complexity of the cases it receives under FOIA. The actual 

number of appeals pending has decreased by 50%. The end of this fiscal year saw an increase in the 

number of requests seeking access to consumer complaint information and related data. (FY2009 –

35 Pending FOIA cases; 24 Pending Appeals; FY 2010 – 104 Pending FOIA cases; 12 Pending Appeals.)

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

781

607

355

382

282

FY2006

FY2007

FY2008

FY2009

FY2010
21

Is the backlog increase caused by a loss of staff?

There has been no loss of staff in DO (which uses a decentralized system) to explain a backlog 

increase. However, frequently FOIA work falls under the “other duties as assigned” category and is 

not the primary duty of the FOIA point of contact. Assisting our resources with education, tracking 

tools, and contractor support helps to continuously leverage the resources available. 

Is the backlog increase caused by an increase in the complexity of the requests received?

Complexity may contribute to the backlog—complex requests take longer to process.

What other causes, if any, contributed to the increase in backlog?

Generally, appeal level officials are higher level officials, who may need to delegate this function in 

order to administratively process appeals in a timely manner.

3. Describe the steps your agency is taking to reduce any backlogs and to improve 

timeliness in responding to requests and administrative appeals. 

In doing so, answer the following questions and then also include any other steps 

being taken to improve timeliness.

Does your agency routinely set goals and monitor the progress of your FOIA caseload?

Steps taken by DO to reduce backlogs:

• Set goals for reduction for the fiscal year

• Monitor the progress of the case process

• Provide contractor support for offices needing additional assistance

• Enhance the technology to increase the FOIA administration efficiency

• The Chief FOIA Officer sets target goals each fiscal year. Monitoring is conducted on a weekly 

and monthly basis in DO.

Has your agency increased its FOIA staffing?

DO recompeted a FOIA services contract for additional and continued support.

No staffing increase occurred in OCC during FY10, but OCC will be evaluating the structure of the 

disclosure unit following integration with the Disclosure Office of OTS in July 2011. No staffing 

increases are not contemplated due to the statutory merger with OTS. 

Has your agency made IT improvements to increase timeliness?

As previously discussed, a hosted cloud FOIA tracking solution has been acquired to increase 

monitoring and reporting as well as tracking efficiencies. Other software technology will enhance 

public access as well search capabilities electronically within DO. As previously discussed, OCC 
22

acquired a FOIA specific tracking system. IRS made upgrades and improvements to its tracking 

solution to streamline a regional process. (See below)

Has your agency Chief FOIA Officer been involved in overseeing your agency’s capacity to process 

requests?

The Chief FOIA Officer has supported the FOIA mission with leveraging other systems, funding for 

new software, and is leading Treasury to explore better solutions and not settle for the status quo.

The number of backlogged FOIA requests at the IRS decreased from 182 at the beginning of FY2010 

to 118 cases at the end of the year. Backlogged appeals decreased from 60 to 11. IRS closed all ten 

of the oldest cases pending for fiscal year 2009. The IRS Appeals Office also closed all ten of the 

oldest appeals pending at year end 2009. IRS follows the annual backlog goals established by 

Treasury, reporting both monthly and annually. Specifically: 

• IRS monitors its backlog levels with weekly status reports.

• IRS was very aggressive in immediately filling vacancies, so that by the end of FY10 we 

successfully increased our on- rolls FOIA staffing by 6 positions. This effort assisted in 

decreasing the FOIA backlog by 35% in FY10. 

• The AFOIA inventory management system is central to IRS’ initiative to improve FOIA timeliness 

and will be fully implemented in 2011. The system brings with it a number of changes designed 

to improve timeliness, efficiency and effectiveness. These include:

o Case log-in and assignment at a centralized site which streamlines the process of balancing 

inventory among staff by eliminating the need to reassign copy and ship cases from one 

office to another.

o Electronic, rather than paper, maintenance of records which simplifies review and redaction 

processes and provides the option for a centralized process for responding to requests.

o Archiving of case records and histories which reduces search time for records previously 

requested and reduces the time and cost of monitoring and reporting on FOIA activities.

• The IRS Chief, Disclosure serves as the IRS Chief FOIA Officer and is involved in all aspects of the 

FOIA program. 

The following bureaus did not have a backlog in either requests or appeals for FY 2010: BEP, BPD, 

FINCEN, FMS, MINT, and TIGTA. OTS reduced their backlog in requests and appeals to single digits.

Of the ten oldest FOIA requests pending at the end of FY2009, OTS closed out seven during FY2010. 

• At FMS, the Disclosure Officer monitors the progress of our FOIA caseload and proactively works 

with the FOIA liaisons and program personnel to meet applicable deadlines. Also, the Disclosure 

Officer briefs executives and program liaisons annually about caseload and offers projections or 

best estimates for the coming year based on agency planned initiatives.

• OTS completed 78.4% of requests in a timely manner.

• In FY10, FMS processed 321 FOIA requests and only seven requests (approximately 2.2 percent 

of FMS’ FOIA caseload) required a processing time of more than 20 working days. 

• None of the components had an increase in staffing, on the contrary, TIGTA had a 39% increase 

in the number of FOIA requests received from FY 09 to FY 10 and met its statutory goals 

notwithstanding a 33% reduction in staffing levels for most of FY 10. 
23

• OTS has not increased its permanent FOIA staffing; however, temporary help was utilized during 

FY2010 to assist with processing requests. Also, as with the previous fiscal year, OTS FOIA staff 

periodically worked beyond normal business hours to complete past due requests.
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25

Spotlight on Success

The Department’s approach to both improve FOIA processing efficiencies while disclosing as much 

information as feasible is enabled by the hard work of the many professionals at Treasury that work 

hard to achieve these goals. Some shining examples of these efforts are presented below. 

The IRS success story centers on the use of 

technology, and includes an external, publicfacing IRS.gov website, an internal employeefacing IRWeb website, and the use of social 

media. Central to Treasury’s efforts to 

increase transparency is the new IRS Open 

Government web page, which provides 

avenues for the public, tax practitioners and 

other stakeholders to participate in the IRS 

decision-making process and collaborate 

with IRS and its partners to improve 

operations. The IRS is making it easy for the 

public to take part in Open Government by 

providing more meaningful and easy-to-find 

information about how the IRS works, 

soliciting ideas to help develop effective 

policy, and partnering with other 

government agencies and private 

institutions. Other key accomplishments:

• An IRS Intranet FOIA webpage was 

created for IRS employees which provides 

them with information about employee 

responsibilities for FOIA, transparency and 

Open Government.

• The use of social media has 

expanded exponentially: IRS runs four 

YouTube channels with over 300 videos 

posted on a wide variety of topics intended 

to inform the public about IRS and how to 

understand tax laws and procedures. These 

videos are produced in English, Spanish and 

American Sign Language, and have well over 

one million views.

Process efficiencies gained in Departmental Offices (DO) included a reduction in cycle time results based 

on implementing the findings of the Lean Six Sigma program review. For example, time to complete 

requests decreased in FY10. Comparing the statistics from the FY09 to FY10 FOIA Annual Reports to DOJ 

we found that:
26

• Cycle time decreased for Complex requests from 47.6 to 14.02 days (average), and 14 to 12 days 

(median); 

• Cycle time decreased for Expedited treatment from 81.6 to 21.1 days (average), and 74 to 13 

days (median).

One visible sign of successfully moving Treasury towards a culture of transparency and openness was 

the transparency of the Department’s activities in standing up programs as a result of the Wall Street 

Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. This comprehensive financial reform legislation is of 

significant interest to the public, and the transparency policy and practices underscores Treasury’s 

commitment to implementing the historic Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act 

in an open and transparent manner.