An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Right To Know Advisory Committee Concerning Receipt of a Request for Public Records
Maine Legislature, Session 127, LD 1085
Committee Amendment CA_A_H473 (House)
Amends: 1 MRSA §408-A, 1 MRSA §413

COMMITTEE AMENDMENT "A" to H.P. 746, L.D. 1085, Bill, "An Act To 
Implement the Recommendations of the Right To Know Advisory Committee 
Concerning Receipt of a Request for Public Records" 
Amend the bill by striking out everything after the enacting clause and before the 
summary and inserting the following: 
'Sec. 1. 1 MRSA §408-A, sub-§3, as amended by PL 2013, c. 350, § I, is further 
amended to read: 
3. Acknowledgment; clarification; time estimate; cost estimate. The agency or 
official having custody or control of a public record shall acknowledge receipt of a 
request made according to this section within 5 working days of receiving the request and 
may request clarification concerning which public record or public records are being 
requested. Within a reasonable time of receiving the request, the agency or official shall 
provide a good faith, nonbinding estimate of the time within which the agency or official 
will comply with the request, as well as a cost estimate as provided in subsection 9. The 
agency or official shall make a good faith effort to fully respond to the request within the 
estimated time. For purposes of this subsection, the date a request is received is the date 
a sufficient description of the public record is received by the agency or official at the 
office responsible for maintaining the public record. An agency or official that receives a 
request for a public record that is maintained by that agency but is not maintained by the 
office that received the request shall forward the request to the office of the agency or 
official that maintains the record, without willful delay, and shall notify the requester that 
the request has been forwarded and that the office to which the request has been 
forwarded will acknowledge receipt within 5 working days of receiving the request. 
Sec. 2. 1 MRSA §413, sub-§l, as enacted by PL 2011, c. 662, §8, is amended to 
read: 
1. 
Designation; responsibility. 
Each agency, county, municipality, school 
administrative unit and regional or other political subdivision shall designate an existing 
employee as its public access officer to serve as the contact person for that agency, 
county, municipality, school administrative unit aH-6 or regional or other political 
COMMITTEE AMENDMENT 
l3 
COMMITTEE AMENDMENT "A" to H.P. 746, L.D. 1085 
subdivision with regard to requests for public records under this sUbchapter. The public 
access officer is responsible for ensuring that each public record request is acknowledged 
within a reasonable period of time 5 working days of the receipt of the request by the 
office responsible for maintaining the public record requested and that a good faith 
estimate of when the response to the request will be complete is provided according to 
section 408-A. The public access officer shall serve as a resource within the agency, 
county, municipality, school administrative unit and regional or other political 
subdivision concerning freedom of access questions and compliance.' 
SUMMARY 
This amendment requires the agency or official that forwards a public record request 
to the office that has custody of the records that are the subject of the request to notify the 
requester that the request has been forwarded to the appropriate office and that the 5-day 
period within which the receipt of the request must be acknowledged begins to run when 
that receiving office receives the request. 
This amendment also amends the laws governing public access officers by 
specifically requiring that a request for public records be acknowledged within 5 working 
days of the receipt of the request by the office responsible for maintaining the public 
record requested. This is consistent with the acknowledgment deadline. 
This amendment clarifies that the responsibility to forward a request for public 
records to the office that maintains the records is limited to circumstances in which the 
request is made to an agency that consists of more than one office in different locations, 
and the request is made to an office that does not maintain the records. The bill requires 
that the request be forwarded to the office that does maintain the records. It does not 
require a municipality to forward the request to another municipality. 
COMMITTEE AMENDMENT