FEDERAL MEDIATION AND CONCILIATION SERVICE

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

WASHINGTON, DC 20427

Office of the General Counsel

2013 Chief FOIA Officer Report to the Department of Justice

Pursuant to the Attorney General’s FOIA Guidelines

Overview

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is a small, independent agency 

composed of 236 employees. Commensurate with its size, the FMCS received a mere 69 FOIA 

requests during the time frame covered by this report (March 12, 2012 to date),* and processed 

67 requests to conclusion, and, with one exception, closed all of these within 20 business days.

The average response time for all 67 cases was 7.2 days. Only two of these requests were denied 

in their entirety, while the response to 4 requests had information redacted. No cases were 

backlogged as of the end of the reporting period. Two appeals were received and affirmed

during this period.

For most of the reporting period, the FMCS had a FOIA Officer and a Chief FOIA 

Officer, but no other formal FOIA structure. IT support was available as needed on an ad hoc 

basis. The FOIA Officer retired effective November 30, 2012 and has not been replaced. Under 

these circumstances, and as demonstrated below, the vast majority of the Attorney General’s

FOIA Guidelines either are not applicable to an agency of this size processing a limited number 

of requests or have been implemented previously.

I. Steps Taken to Apply the Presumption of Openness

During most of the 2013 CFOY, the Chief FOIA Officer personally responded to 

approximately 40% of the FOIA requests and conferred with the FOIA Officer on some 

additional 20% of the FOIA cases. Beginning December 1, 2012, the Chief FOIA Officer 

responded to all requests. Hence, on the basis of personal knowledge, the Chief FOIA Officer 

can attest to the fact that FMCS’s FOIA activities are conducted with a presumption of openness. 

This presumption of openness was reinforced by the attendance of the FOIA Officer at DOJ’s 

Refresher Training on the Guidelines for Preparation of Annual FOIA Reports during the 2013 

CFOY.

FMCS has not had occasion to make discretionary releases of otherwise exempt 

information. However, were such a potential opportunity to present itself, the Agency would 

utilize a balancing test to determine whether or not to make a discretionary disclosure. 

Specifically, FMCS would balance the benefit to the requester and the public of releasing the 

* The 2013 Chief FOIA Officer Year or “2013 CFOY.”
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information against the harm of making the disclosure in the specific factual context of the 

individual case.

FMCS has also furthered the interest of openness by frequently compiling data for 

requesters, rather than supplying them with raw data, in order to provide them with information 

in the most useful form. For instance, one state agency requester sought work stoppage data for 

three selected states over a twelve year period. FMCS could have directed the requester to the 

Agency’s website, where this information could have been extracted with great difficulty from 

monthly reports of all strikes and lockouts listed alphabetically by employer rather than state by 

state. Instead, with its electronic capabilities, the Agency created a new Excel database 

containing this information and posted it in its FOIA Reading Room where it could be easily 

accessed by the requester. Further, since the requester indicated it desired this information on an 

on-going basis, the Agency committed to updating the Reading Room file annually, thereby 

negating the need for further requests for this information. See also, Spotlight on Success, infra.

FMCS’s pattern of full and partial disclosures has been consistent from CFOY to CFOY,

when considered in the context of the number of cases processed each year. Thus, in the 2010

CFOY, the Agency processed a total of 143 requests, of which 82 were full grants, one was a 

partial grant and none were full denials. Of the 136 requests processed in the 2011 CFOY, 70

were full grants, 4 were partial grants and there was one full denial. Similarly, in the 2012

CFOY, FMCS processed a total of 91 requests, of which 41 were full grants, 9 were partial 

grants and none were full denials. Finally, of 67 requests processed in the 2013 CFOY to date, 

28 were full grants, seven were partial grants and 2 were full denials.

II. Steps Taken to Ensure that This Agency Has an Effective System in Place for 

Responding to Requests

Since the FMCS is a small agency, the number of FOIA requests it processes are limited 

as shown above and, because they are centrally processed, the Agency does not require complex 

systems to operate effectively and efficiently. The Chief FOIA Officer currently prepares,

reviews and/or determines the appropriate response in all cases. He is training a new Assistant in 

a supporting role, and that Assistant may eventually receive sufficient training to become the 

new FOIA Officer. The FMCS uses a variety of systems to ensure effective responses including, 

for example, dedicated electronic filing, log in/out, and request tracking. Three IT personnel 

have been specially designated to provide information support: one is dedicated to website 

posting, another to technical support and a third to records retrieval. Given the Agency’s small 

size, there is substantial overlap among FOIA and Open Government personnel, which 

necessarily results in significant interaction between these two functions.

III. Steps Taken to Increase Proactive Disclosures

Since the close of FY2004, the FMCS has made major additions to the information 

available to the public in its Reading Room located on the Agency’s website. This includes 

frequently sought data concerning, among other things, notices of contract termination (F-7 

Notices), arbitration data, and beginning and ending work stoppages reports. These data are
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updated on a monthly basis. These new categories of Reading Room postings, which were 

completed prior to the 2013 CFOY, have resulted in a year to year reduction of Agency FOIA

requests of more than 80% since FY2004. In addition, in order to improve the delivery of FOIA 

services, the FMCS also added a voluntary customer feedback survey form to its Reading Room 

prior to the 2013 CFOY. 

During the 2013 CFOY, in order to make the retrieval of F-7 data easier, FMCS consolidated 

each Fiscal Year’s 12 monthly reports into a single annual report in the FOIA Reading Room. 

This allows a party interested in searching data for all of FY2011, for example, to select a single 

FY2011 data icon rather than, as previously, having to search data from 12 monthly FY2011 

reports. See also, Spotlight On Success, infra. However, other than the annualization of monthly 

data, no additional categories of information were identified during the reporting period which, if 

added to the Reading Room, would have further reduced FOIA requests to the Agency.

IV. Steps Taken to Greater Utilize Technology

The FMCS has had the capability to receive and process all requests electronically on a 

centralized basis since FY2009. The Agency uses a dedicated email address, which is available 

on the Agency’s website, to receive electronic requests. The FMCS has the capacity to track all 

requests electronically and uses off-the-shelf email management, word processing and Excel 

spread sheet systems to process requests. The Agency also utilizes its Case and Contact 

Management System, originally developed to track mediation cases, to perform document search 

and retrieval. In addition, the Agency is developing a separate document system, due to be 

implemented within the next 6 months, for sharing, storing and searching for its documents. 

Finally, during the 2013 CFOY, the FMCS added a number of enhancements to its Excel 

spreadsheet-based tracking system, including tracking for periods of tolling, estimated due dates 

incorporating the Federal holiday calendar and quarterly request tracking. In light of FMCS’s 

track record of prompt and efficient FOIA processing, the Agency has deemed it unnecessary to 

provide requesters with the ability to track requests on line.

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

1. FMCS utilizes a separate track for simple requests. On average, the Agency 

processed simple requests in 7.5 days during FY2012 and 6.3 days during the 2013 

CFOY.

2. FMCS has had no backlogs since the close of FY2009. The Agency had no pending 

cases as of the close of FY2011 and only two pending requests [one pending 4 days 

and one pending 3 days] at the end of FY2012. As of the close of both FYs 2011 and 

2012, FMCS had no pending appeals.

3. There was no reduction in the backlog of requests or appeals in FY2011, FY2012 or

the 2013 CFOY, because there was no backlog in any of these categories to begin 

with. In as much as the Agency has not incurred any backlogs since FY2009, it 

could not take any additional steps to reduce backlogs.
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Use of FOIA’s Law Enforcement “Exclusions”

FMCS did not invoke any law enforcement exclusion in any of its FOIA responses during 

FY2012 or the 2013 CFOY.

Spotlight on Success

Each year, FMCS receives several complex requests for records noticing termination of 

collective bargaining agreements and proposing negotiations for new agreements (F-7 Notices).

Parties are required to submit F-7 Notices to the Agency by law 60-90 days prior to contract 

expiration. Historically, these records have been organized and updated on a monthly basis and 

have been available on the FMCS website. A requester seeking information regarding a specific 

agreement, who knew the year but did not know the month in which the data was filed, might 

have to review as many as 12 months of entries, or a total of some 15,000 entries, to find the 

single record or group of records of interest.

While FOIA requires the production of data by an agency under appropriate 

circumstances, it does not require an agency to manipulate data to put it in a format deemed most 

useful by the requester. Nevertheless, on numerous occasions in the past, FMCS has extracted 

requested F-7 information from collective bargaining data available on its website and provided 

it to requesters, because the burden of having to search month after month of information to find 

the data responsive to the requester’s inquiry was substantial. 

During the 2013 CFOY, the FMCS took a major step to remove the burden assumed by 

the Agency in conducting individualized searches and retrievals and the burden otherwise placed 

on requesters required to search monthly files. FMCS combined the monthly reports for each 12-

month period into a single annual report for each Fiscal Year beginning FY1997 through 

FY2012. See Section III, supra. This proactive data reorganization was similar to that described 

in Section I. with respect to work stoppage reports. FMCS believes this approach to both F-7 and 

work stoppage data is consistent with the “spirit of cooperation” sought by President Obama and 

exemplifies the type of “proactive disclosure” whose importance was stressed by Attorney 

General Holder.

Michael J. Bartlett

Chief FOIA Officer

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service

March 1, 2013