Foxx's Office Unwilling Or Unable To Follow FOIA, Provide Staff List

CHICAGO — For more than three months, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office has been unable or unwilling to provide a list of its employees in response to a public records request.

The office's failure to respond to a request under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, came just weeks after the Illinois Attorney General's Office issued a rare binding opinion that the state's attorney's office had violated the FOIA in nearly identical fashion.

On Jan. 24, Patch requested the "names, job titles, start date, and total compensation of all employees of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office."

Such information about public employees undisputedly constitutes public records, and many public bodies, including cities, counties and school districts, publish it without requiring residents to file such a request.

The deadline for a response came and went with no word from the state's attorney's office, so on Feb. 23, Patch requested a review by the public access counselor at the Illinois Attorney General's office.

On March 2, the attorney general's office requested a response from Elyssa Shull, a FOIA officer for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. Assistant Attorney General Victoria Frazier was able to get something the prosecutor's office does not provide to all requesters — a response.

"I am working on this request," Shull told Frazier. On March 29, in response to a request for an update, Shull said she was "following up with the department that is creating the records." And again on April 6: "I have requested the data and I am following up with our data team."

Weeks later, neither Patch nor the attorney general's office had received any records in response from the office of Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, who on Tuesday announced she will not seek a third term in office as chief county prosecutor. The state's attorney's office has more than 1,200 employees, including 754 prosecutors, according to its website.

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Last year, the public access counselor for the attorney general's office received nearly 600 requests for review from media outlets and other organizations and 2,400 from members of the public but issued only 14 binding opinions.

In the final opinion of last year, issued on Dec. 15, 2022, the attorney general's office ordered the Cook County State's Attorney's Office to comply with a Sept. 29, 2022, request from attorney Pat Morrissey for litigation costs and fees paid to Johnson & Bell, the outside firm hired by the civil division prosecutor's office to defend the county in court.

In that case, the state's attorney's office also failed for months to respond to a relatively simple FOIA request.

"Accordingly, the State's Attorney's Office is hereby directed to take immediate and appropriate action to comply with this opinion by providing Mr. Morrissey with copies of all records responsive to his September 29, 2022, request, subject only to permissible redactions, if any," Chief Deputy Attorney General Brent Stratton said in the binding opinion.

"We are pleased with the Attorney General’s binding opinion," Morrissey told Patch in response.

Patch on Tuesday asked Shull why the state's attorney's office has failed to comply with the FOIA, as well as how many employees have been added or subtracted to the list of employees originally requested three months ago, but did not receive a response.

Binding opinions are rare because the Illinois FOIA only allows the attorney general's public access counselor to issue a binding opinion within 60 days of a request for review. It can request a 30-day extension, but has not done so in the case of Patch's request for a list of employees.