City of Warrenton elected officials and staff will attend a class this month to ensure they understand the requirements of the Missouri Sunshine Law, according to Mayor Eric Schleuter.

The topic came up at the Aug. 18 Board of Aldermen meeting, where Schleuter said the city had recently looked into records requests that have been submitted under the Sunshine Law.

“And I guess we were up to speed, right? I mean, we were up to where we needed to be?” Schleuter asked City Administrator Brandie Walters, who said the city was in compliance with the open records statute.

Later in the meeting, Director of Operations Jon Struckhoff noted that the city received 20 Sunshine requests in July.

Alderwoman Christine Wait asked whether the 20 requests were just for city hall or included other areas of city government such as the Warrenton Police Department. Struckhoff said it included “all Sunshine requests,” but Walters later clarified that it did not include the police department.

“It’s just for city hall. It has nothing to do with the police department. They do their own records requests,” she said.

Wait also noted that the city received 31 records requests in January, but the number dropped as low as 13 requests in May. She asked if this amount of requests was “normal,” and Walters said it was.

“It has been,” she said.

Schleuter said the city is “up to speed where we’re supposed to be at” regarding records requests. “Some are still open, but we’re not behind,” he said.

The Missouri Sunshine Law requires government agencies in the state to respond to records requests within three business days, although they can often take longer to actually deliver the requested records.

Speaking in public comment at the Board of Aldermen’s Aug. 4 meeting, resident Jess Sutton said she was “waiting on Sunshine documents that are way past the allotted time with no reasoning.”

At the Aug. 18 meeting, Wait said she had received a complaint about the fees the city was charging to fulfill records requests.

“We’ll maybe have another conversation about that, but they say they were being charged anywhere from $80 to $90. Is that correct? An hour?” she asked.

“It depends on who it is, because it goes by who has access to the information,” said Schleuter. “I think we’re actually putting on another class to make sure we’re updated on it by September.”

As of Friday, Aug. 28, the city was still working on getting the class scheduled, City Clerk Melody Rugh told the Record.

Wait said Aug. 18 that the resident who brought the issue to her attention noted that the records requested are supposed to be looked up by the lowest paid employee available, and “questioned the validity of the $81 an hour.” 

Schleuter said, though, that the rule about the lowest paid employee looking up the records referred to the lowest paid employee who would normally have access to those records. In some cases, he said, the only person with authority to access city records is Walters.

“If she has to look up anything she has access to and only she does, then she would have to look it up at $81 an hour for what she makes,” Schleuter said.

Wait asked if someone else would be trained to look up these records at the class in September, but Schleuter said that, “due to reasons within the city,” some records will remain internally off-limits to anyone but Walters.

“We don’t have admin assistants,” Walters said. “We’re the only ones that do it.”

Besides Schleuter, Alderman Roger Romaker also came to the city’s defense for charging what it does for records requests.

“$81 an hour in today’s age is not an exorbitant fee,” he said. 

“For example, I know a company that charges $300 an hour for air conditioning service, so I don’t find $81 as exorbitant.”

Schleuter said the upcoming training for city officials and staff will be an educational opportunity.

“All the aldermen will be invited to come to the class as well as the city employees, and they’ll be able to learn and ask questions and interact with somebody from the Attorney General’s Office,” he said.

At the end of the meeting, those aldermen present also unanimously approved a list of old city records to destroy, including city Sunshine request records from 2022, beyond the three-year minimum required retention period, and Warrenton Police Department Sunshine request records from 2019 to 2023. Alderman Larry Corder was not at the meeting.