Think the City Responds Promptly to Public Records Requests?

As part of Sunshine Week, the state made public records requests from all 247 cities in Ohio in October, and 60 percent responded promptly, including Stow. 

The Auditor of State’s office made a request for payroll records of all of Ohio's cities as part of an effort to evaluate the format of electronic records and the ease of use and access to payroll records, which typically represent the majority of spending by local governments, a press release from State Auditor Dave Yost's office stated.

Mike Maurer from Yost's office said North Canton wasn't exactly prompt.

"They are sort of a hard one because they’re right on the edge," Maurer said in an email to North Canton Patch. "I think it’s fair to say they were within the approximately one month the auditor said was reasonable."

"I have been advising everyone who asks to remember, and note if they can, that our focus is on process — data format, file format and ease of response, with a goal of figuring out how to make this sort of thing easier, cheaper and more meaningful. We ourselves are not focusing on any individual city."

Yost said in a press release that 60 percent of cities responded to the request within a reasonable amount of time.

"Many of them did it in only one or two days, several even the same day," Yost said. "The bad news is, far too many cities failed timely response. A very few failed to respond at all, despite three additional requests.”

North Canton Patch is awaiting a response from .