COMMUNITY AND GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
PUBLIC RELATIONS
PUBLIC INFORMATION / OPEN RECORDS

Procedure

PUBLIC INFORMATION/OPEN RECORDS
The Vice President for Finance & Administration, is the College District’s officer for public information (open records). Each department head is an agent of the officer for public information for the purposes of complying with the public information (open records) laws and the College District’s policy on public records. The officer for public information (open records) shall make public information available for public inspection and copying. The officer for public information is responsible for the release of public information as required by Government Code Chapter 552. The officer is not responsible for the use made of the information by the requestor or the release of the information after it is removed from a record.
 
Departments are instructed to contact the Vice President of Finance and Administration immediately upon receipt of any request for public information. It is important to forward information requests to the Open Records Office as soon as they are received in order for the College District to meet the requirements of the Texas Public Information Act.
 
The following steps should be taken when receiving an open records request:
  1. All open records must come through the open records email at Open Records Office . Anyone receiving an email, phone call, written request, etc., must inform the sender that they must make the request directly through the email above in order for the tracking time of the request to begin.

  2. Upon receiving the request through the Open Records Office email, the Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Finance and Administration will log the request into a file to begin tracking of the 10 days response time and will determine if the request should be sent to the Vice President of Human Resources if a personnel request; the Vice President of Finance and Administration if the request deals with contracts or financial information; or the Vice President of Enrollment Management and Institutional Effectiveness if a request for student information.

  3. Updates will be logged into the file created by the Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Finance and Administration by the area in which the request is assigned or sent directly to the Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Finance and Administration to enter into the file.

  4. Once the information is received by the appropriate area, the Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Finance and Administration will send the information to the original requestor and update the file on the date the information was sent.
 

Updated: September 14, 2021