Use this tab for tips on how

This is easy enough if you want to see an e-mail or a contract -- that is, documents you already know exist. It can be more complicated if you are looking for certain types of information that may or may not be in the form you are hoping for.
For example, say you want to compare each of the bids a city received for painting the capitol building, but you don't know which contractors submitted bids. So, you might make a request for a list of all the painting contractors that bid on the project. However, the city may never have compiled such a list--they may just have the individual bids from each contractor. The city is not required to tell you "we don't have a list of everyone that submitted a bid, we just have the submissions", they can simply tell you that the document you requested does not exist. The information you want probably DOES exist, but you need to make sure you are asking for it in the right way.

Step 2: Research who has the document you want.

Continuing the example of painting contractor's bids, you'll next need to figure out who would keep such information. Some government departments have designated FOIA officers, and in that case, this step is easy. If no such officer is listed though, it's up to you to make your best guess. In this example, I would go to the city's website and look for titles like "Operations Manager" or "Facilities Manager" and start with them.

Step 3: Write the request.

The easiest way to do this is to use a letter generator or template. Depending on the request you may wish to divide it up into smaller pieces. For example, say you've gotten the list of painters that bid on the project to paint the capitol, and now you want to see if there were any e-mails between the contractors and the department that awarded the contract. Rather than requesting "all emails to and from X, Y and Z contractors to A, B and C departments" you might divide it into three requests - all of contractor X's emails, all of contractor Y's emails and all of contractor Z's emails with the department. This is not a necessary step, but it can be helpful in getting timely replies to bigger requests.

Step 4: Submit the request.

This can be done via mail, certified mail, e-mail or oral request according to your preference and record keeping desires.

Step 5: Wait.

Determine if your state has a statutorily mandated response time. Follow up on your request if that time passes by phone or letter. If there is no exact time that open records requests must be answered by, follow up every two weeks.

The Wisconsin Attorney General has determined that 10-14 days is a reasonable time period for a government entity to respond to an Open Records Request, even though in most cases they should be able to respond in just a matter of 3-4 days.