SPOKANE, WA – The Spokane Transit Authority joined a growing list of government agencies on Thursday to avoid maintaining a public records index by concluding it would be “unduly burdensome.”
Since the 1970s, state law has required agencies to provide an index for certain public records unless they issue an order, arguing that doing so would pose an “unduly burden” or interfere with operations.
Spokane issued one in 2008; Spokane Valley in 2007; Spokane County in 2018; and cities such as Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue have also done so over time, along with several other agencies across the state.
STA followed suit on Thursday, despite spending less than 0.1% of its $154.59 million operational budget on fulfilling records requests in 2024.
“We are not reinventing the wheel,” Chief Financial Officer Robert Hamud told the STA board Thursday.
The lack of an index doesn’t mean the public can’t file a records request; however, STA won’t keep all of those responsive materials in one place for others to see. The board passed a temporary resolution a few months ago to allow for more discussion before making the exemption permanent on Thursday.
George Erb, secretary of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, told The Center Square that opting out of maintaining an index for large agencies makes no sense given the size of their budgets.
In an email, Erb argued that the index exemption poses barriers to transparency and results in people filing overly broad requests that bog down records officers. He said the resolution that the STA board approved on Thursday also doesn’t specify to what extent an index would be “unduly burdensome.”
“The opt-out provision is for agencies for whom indexing is a provable burden — and not a convenient escape hatch for those who think indexing is just a hassle,” Erb told The Center Square in an email.
What is ‘unduly burdensome’?
Humud argued that modern technology predates indexes, which he interpreted as meaning a physical records log that would sit on a desk for public viewing. He said emails, internet history and almost everything that STA records would have to be continuously updated, eating up the agency’s resources.
STA’s legal counsel weighed in on Thursday, noting that this routine process will bring the agency into compliance with the law and that maintaining a physical log would take an exhaustive amount of time.
All the statute requires for the exemption is a formal order stating why an index would be a burden.
“Due to the Agency’s staffing for public records and retention and administrative resources dedicated to the same, the creation and continuous maintenance of a public records index would be costly and would interfere with STA operations and is unduly burdensome,” according to the board’s resolution.
The Washington Administrative Code even recognizes that the index requirement was enacted in 1972, when most records were paper and easier to maintain; however, WAC argues that modern technology enables digital indexing of records and advises agencies to explore this route to assist any requestors.
The Municipal Research and Services Center, a nonprofit that advises local governments on legal and policy matters, says state law doesn’t provide a means to bring a case against an agency that doesn’t maintain an index with or without a resolution declaring that doing so would be “unduly burdensome.”
According to a state audit, STA generated $154.59 million in revenue and spent $138.61 million in 2024.
That year was also the last time government agencies reported their public records costs to the state.
STA estimated that it had spent $43,631 on fulfilling records requests in 2024, according to the data.
“The cost of fulfilling records requests amounted to 0.0314% of the agency’s total spending,” Erb noted.
When asked how much time, money and other resources it would take for STA to maintain an index or whether they had evaluated other options, STA staff responded that they didn’t see the need to do so.
“STA has not identified a need to conduct a study of the scale and scope of both creation and regular maintenance of such an index, which would likely require additional staffing,” Carly Cortright, the chief communications and customer service officer for the agency, wrote in an email to The Center Square.
Humud and STA’s legal counsel didn’t provide specifics around the cost of fulfilling records requests or maintaining an index; they only argued that doing so would be expensive and “unduly burdensome.”
The resolution passed on Thursday without much discussion aside from Spokane City Councilmember Michael Cathcart, who sits on the board, asking if STA knew of any agencies that maintain an index.
After legal counsel said they weren’t sure, Cathcart asked STA staff to include language in Thursday’s resolution emphasizing that the public can still obtain records through the standard request process.
“I’ll support this. I understand the impacts of the agency, and you know why, I guess we have to do this,” Cathcart, who is running for county auditor this fall, said Thursday, “but … it’s important that we make sure that folks understand they can still access all the public records they need to.”
