A Freedom of Information request to the Hamilton Police Service for the organization’s approved but unreleased 2010 budget has been handed off to the Police Services Board.

Darlene Shepherd, co-coordinator of the police freedom of information branch, said the formal request for documents related to the service’s 2010 budget deliberations, including all meeting agendas and minutes, reports and recommendations as well as a copy of the approved final budget, does not fall under her jurisdiction.

“The entire request for access … has been forwarded to the Chair of the Police Services Board,” Shepherd wrote in a letter.

She cites a section of Ontario’s Municipal Freedom of Information Act which states: “The head of an institution that receives a request for access to a record that the institution does not have in its custody or under its control shall … if the head determines that another institution has custody or control of the record, the head shall within fifteen days after the request is received, forward the request to the other institution; and give written notice to the person who made the request that it has been forwarded to the other institution.”

The service’s freedom of information branch considers the local police services board a separate institution, and Shepherd said the service is not allowed access to the board’s records.

“They are more familiar with their records, and familiar with what can and cannot be released,” Shepherd said.

But the Police Services Board has no FOI co-coordinator, so Shepherd is still responsible for the request.

Bob Spence, a spokesperson for Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, said it’s common for a freedom of information cocoordinator to ask a separate department to look for requested documents.

According to IPC policy and provincial legislation, a co-coordinator is not allowed to reveal the identity of a requestor to any staff member of the institution. The IPC has conducted investigations in which it found disclosing a requestor’s identity to an employee was a breach of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Spence said if there is no response within the required 30 days, an appeal of Shepherd’s “deemed refusal” of the request can be filed with the IPC. The police must respond before the end of March to the request.

Unlike most Ontario police services, Hamilton chooses to deliberate, review and approve its annual budget in secret and has always refused to release the final approved budget to the public.

The Hamilton Police Service’s freedom of information branch did not fare well in a 2008 FOI compliance audit conducted by the Canadian Newspaper Association.

Although many police services across Canada simply released the taser incident reports the CNA audit requested, the Hamilton Police FOI coordinator responded: “reports are not accessible to me or to the public. They are not even accessible by the courts.”

It’s not clear what the basis for those statements from the FOI branch was. Local police actually released a detailed report about taser use last month.

The association is currently preparing a report for a subsequent FOI response audit which also includes the Hamilton police.