FOIP Follies - No Records About City Worker Living Expenses
The City of Medicine Hat has been incredibly reluctant to share information, forcing residents to file multiple FOIP requests. In 2024, the City filed no less than 4 Requests to Disregard and were spanked by the OIPC (Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner).
Nicole Frey filed a FOIP asking for the following information and received a fee estimate of over $1000. Some of the information she asked for such was about city worker living expenses; she was told there are NO records. Either someone is incompetent or they are outright lying.
The Medicine Hat Owl has discovered that the City of Medicine Hat says in FOIP Fee Estimate letter to Nicole Frey that
There are no records of:
the number of City employees paid or reimbursed for living expenses;
for each employee (by job title or position) paid or reimbursed for living expenses:
the duration for which they were paid or reimbursed for living expenses;
the itemized living expenses for which they were paid or reimbursed;
the amounts they were paid or reimbursed for living expenses on an itemized basis;
the employee’s position type (i.e., permanent part time, permanent full time, temporary,
etc.).
the total amount of living expenses paid out or reimbursed.
Courtesy of Nicole Frey
The City has also filed an extension letter citing the large number of records requested.
The city sent the extension letter which gives them another 30 days to fulfill the request at 1:04pm, then sent the fee estimate at 3:44pm. Frey has 20 days to respond to the fee estimate and 50% must be paid before they start to fulfill it, the clock has stopped until they come up with the deposit of $675. The FOIP Act allows the requester to narrow the scope of their request but Frey has been on a communications ban with the City since November 2023. The City is actually paying an Edmonton lawyer to communicate with Frey in the following fashion.
Frey - Lawyer
Lawyer - City
City - Lawyer
Lawyer - Frey
Frey says it has been a challenge to get a response in a timely manner which can affect the timeline on the FOIPs. She has not been given a timeline as to when the ban will be lifted.
