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Chief FOIA Officer Report

To the Department of Justice

Pursuant to Attorney General Holder's FOIA Guidelines

The Farm Credit Administration (FCA or Agency) submits this report in response to the 

request by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Information Policy. 

This report has been prepared by Jane Virga, Chief FOIA Officer. 

The FCA is an independent agency in the executive branch of the U.S. Government. It is 

responsible for regulating and examining the banks, associations, and related entities of 

the Farm Credit System (System), including the Federal Agricultural Mortgage 

Corporation. The System is a nationwide network of borrower-owned financial 

institutions that provides credit to farmers, ranchers, and agricultural and rural utility 

cooperatives. Originally created in 1933 by an Executive order, the Agency derives its 

powers and authorities from the Farm Credit Act of 1971, as amended. 

The FCA strives to have an exemplary Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) program, to 

process all FOIA requests within the statutory time frames, and to comply with all 

aspects of the FOIA. The FCA is a small Agency, with approximately 250 employees, 

and receives only a small number of FOIA requests (usually less than 50 requests per 

year). Although FCA has four small field offices, its headquarters in McLean, Virginia, 

retains most of the Agency’s records. Thus, FCA’s FOIA staff is able to conduct records 

searches quickly, efficiently, and on time. We have no backlog. 

The basic FOIA staff is housed in the Office of General Counsel. With the assistance of 

one administrative person, the FOIA Officer processes all FOIA requests. FCA’s Director 

of the Office of Management Services, who is not a member of the Office of General 

Counsel, serves as the FOIA Appeals Officer. He receives legal guidance as necessary 

from a Senior Counsel who is not otherwise part of the basic FOIA process.

Section I: Steps Taken to Apply the Presumption of Openness

1. Did your agency hold an agency FOIA conference, or otherwise conduct training 

during this reporting period? 

The Farm Credit Administration (FCA) is a small agency and the FOIA Office consists of 

the Chief FOIA Officer and a FOIA Officer. As such, the FCA did not see a need to hold 

an agency conference on FOIA specifically. However, the FOIA Officer provided 

training and held a Q&A session to newly commissioned FCA examiners and other FCA 

staff that were attending an internal training conference. The FOIA training regarded the 

FOIA generally, and also focused on how the FOIA function often intersects with the 

Office of Examination. Furthermore, the Chief FOIA Officer, a highly-seasoned FOIA 

veteran, provides ongoing training to the FCA’s FOIA Officer and to others on as needed 

on an ongoing basis.

Did your FOIA professionals attend any FOIA training, such as that provided by the 

Department of Justice? 
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The FOIA Officer has attended several FOIA trainings provided by DOJ.

2. Did your agency make any discretionary releases of otherwise exempt information? 

Yes. The FCA made 2 discretionary releases of material known to be withholdable under 

one or more FOIA exemptions out of 18 FOIA responses that involved information 

release. Of note is that it is difficult to determine the exact number of discretionary 

releases because we do not make an official determination as to whether an exemption 

will apply if a release is not likely to cause harm to the Agency and is not prohibited by 

law. Instead, if it meets those two criteria, the release is made with no further analysis 

needed. Thus, there is likely to be a large number of releases that would have qualified 

for an exemption that was released without determining whether an exemption applied 

because such a determination was not necessary.

3. What exemptions would have covered the information that was released as a matter 

of discretion? 

In cases where an exemption was known to apply, Exemption b5 and b8 would have 

covered the information that was released as a matter of discretion. But since we stop the 

analysis and simply release in cases where release is not likely to harm the agency and is 

not prohibited by law, we have likely released material that would have been covered by 

other exemptions as well.

4. Provide a narrative description, or some examples of, the types of information that 

your agency released as a matter of discretion. 

An example of where FCA released information known to be covered by an exemption as 

a matter of discretion is as follows: despite the applicability of Exemption b2, we 

disclosed a number of internal personnel policies that were very trivial in nature such has 

how FCA defines basic human resources terms, the flexiplace policy at FCA, FCA’s 

training policy applicable to its employees, and the like.

5. Describe any other initiatives undertaken by your agency to ensure that the 

presumption of openness is being applied. 

The FCA applies the presumption of openness to all decisions involving the FOIA. The 

Chief FOIA Officer and FOIA Officer maintain constant contact to ensure that all 

appropriate discretionary disclosures are made. Furthermore, whenever the FOIA Officer 

or Chief FOIA Office are invited to present at FCA training conferences, we always 

spread the word that FCA operates under a presumption of openness to the maximum 

extent possible.
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Section II: Steps Taken to Ensure that Your Agency

Has an Effective System in Place for Responding to Requests 

1. Do FOIA professionals within your agency have sufficient IT support?

Yes. The FOIA Officer is able to obtain all necessary Information Technology (IT) 

support. However, because of the small size of the FOIA staff and relatively small 

number of FOIA requests each year, the need for IT support is limited. Nevertheless, the 

Chief FOIA Officer maintains a close and cordial working relationship with the Office of 

the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), which ensures adequate IT support. This has 

allowed FCA to comply with the quarterly FOIA reporting requirement. The OCIO has a 

helpline that provides 24 hour service.

2. Do your FOIA professionals work with your agency’s Open Government Team?

The Chief FOIA Officer interacts with the Open Government Team, as well as the senior 

leadership at the Agency to ensure accountability and the sustainability of transparency, 

participation, and collaboration.

3. Has your agency assessed whether adequate staffing is being devoted to FOIA 

administration? 

We believe there is adequate staffing devoted to FOIA administration. The Agency does 

not have a backlog, nor has there been one in more than 20 years. Thus, we believe that 

the existing staffing is adequate for FOIA administration. 

4. Describe any other steps your agency has undertaken to ensure that your FOIA 

system operates efficiently and effectively, such as conducting self-assessments to 

find greater efficiencies, improving search processes, streamlining consultations, 

eliminating redundancy, etc. 

The Chief FOIA Officer and the FOIA Officer are in constant contact and conduct selfassessments in order to respond to FOIA requests quickly, accurately, and with a 

minimum or no fee assessment. For instance, the FOIA Officer will contact a requester 

to narrow or clarify a request in order to respond in less than 20 business days and with 

documents fully responsive to the requester’s needs.

Section III: Steps Taken to Increase Proactive Disclosures

1. Provide examples of material that your agency has posted this past year.

In the past year, the FCA has posted the following documents: Informational 

Memoranda; Farm Credit System Major Financial Indicators; proposed and final rules; 

news releases; Performance and Accountability Reports; a Survey of the FCA’s Use of 

Social Media; and a myriad of other documents.
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2. Beyond posting new material, is your agency taking steps to make the posted 

information more useful to the public, especially to the community of individuals 

who regularly access your agency’s website, such as soliciting feedback on the 

content and presentation of the posted material, improving search capabilities on the 

site, creating mobile applications, providing explanatory material, etc.? 

Yes. The FCA is acting to make posted information more useful to the public. 

3. If so, provide examples of such improvements.

We have a direct link on our home page to “FCA and the Open Government Initiative.” 

Additionally, we have asked the public to participate in our “Plan for Retrospective 

Analysis of Existing Rules.” We have also requested feedback on whether the FCA is 

meeting the public’s information needs and asked the public to write to us at 

opengov@fca.gov. Finally, the FCA has a digital strategy to use digital tools to increase 

transparency.

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

Not applicable.

Section IV: Steps Taken to Greater Utilize Technology 

Electronic receipt of FOIA requests:

1. Can FOIA requests be made electronically to your agency?

Yes.

2. If your agency is decentralized, can FOIA requests be made electronically to all

components of your agency? 

Not applicable. The FCA is not decentralized.

Online tracking of FOIA requests: 

3. Can a FOIA requester track the status of his/her request electronically?

No. We respond to all requests within 20 days and do not believe that the FCA needs 

electronic tracking of FOIA requests.

4. If so, describe the information that is provided to the requester through the tracking 

system. For example, some tracking systems might tell the requester whether the 

request is "open" or "closed," while others will provide further details to the requester 

throughout the course of the processing, such as "search commenced" or "documents 
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currently in review. “List the specific types of information that are available through 

your agency's tracking system.

Not applicable.

5. In particular, does your agency tracking system provide the requester with an 

estimated date of completion for his or her request?

Not applicable.

6. If your agency does not provide online tracking of requests, is your agency taking 

steps to establish this capability?

We do not have plans to establish an online tracking system as we respond to all requests 

within 20 business days.

Use of technology to facilitate processing of requests:

7. Beyond using technology to redact documents, is your agency taking steps to utilize 

more advanced technology to facilitate overall FOIA efficiency, such as improving 

record search capabilities, utilizing document sharing platforms for consultations and 

referrals, or employing software that can sort and de-duplicate documents? 

The FCA is using more advanced technology to increase FOIA efficiency.

8. If so, describe the technological improvements being made. 

Although the FCA does not have a backlog, we continue to strive to improve efficiency. 

All of the Agency’s electronic databases are being transferred to SharePoint, which will 

allow improved record search capabilities.

Section V: Steps Taken to Improve Timeliness in

Responding to Requests and Reduce Backlogs 

1. Section VII.A of your agency’s Annual FOIA Report, entitled “FOIA Requests –

Response Time for All Processed Requests,” includes figures that show your agency's 

average response times for processed requests. For agencies utilizing a multi-track system 

to process requests, there is a category for “simple” requests, which are those requests 

that are placed in the agency’s fastest (non-expedited) track, based on the low volume 

and/or simplicity of the records requested. If your agency does not utilize a separate track 

for processing simple requests, answer the question below using the figure provided in 

your report for your non-expedited requests. 

a. Does your agency utilize a separate track for simple requests?

No.
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b. If so, for your agency overall, for Fiscal Year 2012, was the average number of 

days to process simple requests twenty working days or fewer? 

Not applicable.

c. If your agency does not track simple requests separately, was the average number 

of days to process non- expedited requests twenty working days or fewer?

The average number of days to process non-expedited request was less than 20 

working days. The average number was 11.71 days.

2. Sections XII.D.(2) and XII.E.(2) of your agency’s Annual FOIA Report, entitled 

“Comparison of Numbers of Requests/Appeals from Previous and Current Annual 

Report – Backlogged Requests/Appeals,” show the numbers of any backlog of

pending requests or pending appeals from Fiscal Year 2012 as compared to Fiscal 

Year 2011. You should refer to those numbers when completing this section of your 

Chief FOIA Officer Report. In addition, Section VII.E, entitled “Pending Requests –

Ten Oldest Pending Requests,” and Section VI.C.(5), entitled “Ten Oldest Pending 

Administrative Appeals,” from both Fiscal Year 2011 and Fiscal Year 2012 should be 

used for this section. 

a. If your agency had a backlog of requests at the close of Fiscal Year 2012, did 

that backlog decrease as compared with Fiscal Year 2011?

Not applicable. The FCA does not have a backlog.

b. If your agency had a backlog of administrative appeals in Fiscal Year 2012, did 

that backlog decrease as compared to Fiscal Year 2011?

Not applicable. The FCA does not have a backlog.

c. In Fiscal Year 2012, did your agency close the ten oldest requests that were 

pending as of the end of Fiscal Year 2011?

Not applicable. 

d. In Fiscal Year 2012, did your agency close the ten oldest administrative appeals 

that were pending as of the end of Fiscal Year 2011? 

Not applicable.

3. If you answered “no” to any of the above questions, describe why that has occurred. In 

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

Request Backlog:
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a. Was the lack of a reduction in the request backlog a result of an increase in the 

number of incoming requests?

b. Was the lack of a reduction in the request backlog caused by a loss of staff?

c. Was the lack of a reduction in the request backlog caused by an increase in the 

complexity of the requests received?

d. What other causes, if any, contributed to the lack of a decrease in the request 

backlog?

Administrative Appeal Backlog:

a. Was the lack of a reduction in the backlog of administrative appeals a result of 

an increase in the number of incoming appeals? 

b. Was the lack of a reduction in the appeal backlog caused by a loss of 

staff? 

c. Was the lack of a reduction in the appeal backlog caused by an increase in the 

complexity of the appeals received? 

d. What other causes, if any, contributed to the lack of a decrease in the appeal 

backlog? 

4. OIP has issued guidance encouraging agencies to make interim releases whenever they 

are working on requests that involve a voluminous amount of material or require searches 

in multiple locations. By providing rolling releases to requesters agencies facilitate access 

to the requested information. If your agency had a backlog in Fiscal Year 2012, please 

provide an estimate of the number of cases in the backlog where a substantive, interim 

response was provided during the fiscal year, even though the request was not finally 

closed. 

Not applicable.

Use of FOIA’s Law Enforcement “Exclusions”

In order to increase transparency regarding the use of the FOIA’s statutory law 

enforcement exclusions, which authorize agencies under certain exceptional 

circumstances to “treat the records as not subject to the requirements of [the FOIA],” 5 

U.S.C. § 552(c)(1), (2), (3), please answer the following questions:

1. Did your agency invoke a statutory exclusion during Fiscal Year 2012?

No.
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2. If so, what was the total number of times exclusions were invoked?

Not applicable.

Spotlight on Success

Out of all the activities undertaken by your agency since March 2012 to increase 

transparency and improve FOIA administration, describe here one success story that you 

would like to highlight as emblematic of your agency’s efforts. The success story can 

come from any one of the five key areas.

We received a request for certain internal FCA documents that FCA updated in 2011 and 

the requester indicated in the request that she would pay $250 dollars. While the scope of 

the request itself was clear on its face, it occurred to the FOIA staff that the requester may 

have been interested in the most recent updates of such documents rather than only the 

2011 versions. In the spirit of cooperation, the first step was that the FOIA staff reached 

out to the requester, explained that some of the internal documents updated in 2011 may 

have been updated again in 2012, and inquired into which version she was interested in, 

if not both. The requester was indeed only interested in the most recent versions of the 

updated policies and did not want prior obsolete versions. This clarification dramatically 

reduced the search time and number of pages of responsive documents, and this enabled 

us to charge no fees to the requester. The requester was pleased that we reached out to 

her, thanked us for our efforts, and the result was that she received exactly what she 

wanted for the lowest possible cost to her and to the Agency.