The Public Access Counselor of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office (PAC) issued a late binding opinion that did not make our year-end review of 2025 binding opinions, which we have summarized below.

In response to a FOIA request
seeking a termination letter issued to former village clerk, a village entirely
withheld the letter from disclosure pursuant to various exemptions under FOIA. Specifically, the village argued that several provisions of
the Personnel Record Review Act (Act) prohibited the village from disclosing
the letter in response to the FOIA request.

In its 16th binding
opinion of 2025, the PAC concluded that the village improperly withheld the
termination letter in response to the FOIA request. PAC
Op. 25-016.

Although the Act permits an
employee or their designated representative to review certain personnel
records, the PAC determined that this right has no bearing on the availability
of personnel records to third parties pursuant to FOIA. Even if the termination
letter at issue was a record of disciplinary action taken against the former
village clerk, the PAC determined that the Act did not require the
Village to obtain the former village clerk’s consent before disclosing that
letter to the FOIA requester. Instead, the Act merely required the village to
give the former clerk notice of the FOIA request on or before the day that
Village disclosed the letter in response to the FOIA request. The PAC also
determined that the Act’s notice requirement to employees did not toll
the village’s deadline to timely respond to the FOIA request. Therefore, the
PAC concluded that the village did not demonstrate that the letter was exempt
from disclosure under Section 7(1)(a) of FOIA.

Because the termination
letter at issue did not contain any personal information which, if disclosed,
would cause the former clerk a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal
privacy, and the letter itself directly bears on the public duties of the
former village clerk, the PAC concluded that the letter was not exempt from
disclosure under Section 7(1)(c) of FOIA.

Although the village argued
that the termination letter included its decision-making rationale for
terminating the former clerk, the PAC determined that the village never
conducted an adjudicatory proceeding pertaining to the former clerk’s
dismissal, so the Village did not demonstrate that the letter was exempt from
disclosure pursuant to Section 7(1)(n) of FOIA.

Post Authored by Eugene Bolotnikov, Ancel Glink