The Ulster County Sheriff’s Department has violated the state Freedom of Information Law multiple times over the past four months.
The law, known as FOIL and enacted in 1974, is intended to ensure government transparency and provide citizens and journalists access to public records.
From late July through early December, the region’s third-largest law enforcement agency received four separate requests for documents or data that went unanswered:
- In late July, and again in mid-October, The Overlook requested records related to a 2021 incident that took place in the Town of Olive to which the Sheriff’s Department, New York State Police, and Olive Police responded. State Police and Olive Police were sent the same request and complied with FOIL by providing lightly redacted incident reports. The Ulster County Sheriff’s Department did not respond.
- Also in mid-August, The Overlook sent Ulster County Records Clerk James Kalish a request for employment dates and reason for departure of a former Sheriff’s Department officer. That request went unanswered.
- In November, Undersheriff James Mullen responded via voicemail to a follow-up call from The Overlook but left a return phone number that was disconnected.
- On Dec. 1, The Overlook filed a request seeking the number of FOIL requests the Sheriff’s Department has received in 2025 and how many it denied during that period. That request also went unanswered.
On Wednesday, Luke Mason, the Sheriff’s Department’s chief of professional standards, told The Overlook he would look into why the requests had gone unanswered and provide an explanation, but declined further comment.
State law requires government agencies to acknowledge receipt of FOIL requests within five business days. Once acknowledged, agencies generally have 10 to 20 business days to either provide the requested records or explain why the request is being denied. The law, which one attorney described to The Overlook as “badly worded,” allows exemptions from FOIL for a narrow category of documents that involve personal information or sensitive investigations. If an agency does not comply, or if a requester believes their denial is improper, they can sue for release of the records under an Article 78 court proceeding.
Ulster County Sheriff Juan Figueroa told The Overlook on Thursday his department has been overwhelmed by a large volume of FOIL requests. According to Figueroa, the Sheriff’s Department has one clerk handling 600 requests a year.
“We have been inundated with FOIL requests,” Figueroa said. “Are we perfect at responding to every single one? No. Some may fall through the cracks.”
Figueroa said the department is conducting an audit of its FOIL system and suggested that efforts at the state and county level to improve response times have not been matched with adequate staffing resources.
“We are trying to get better at it,” he said. “I wish the mandates came with money to hire people. They did not.”
The Sheriff’s Department’s 2026 budget is $54.4 million, a 13.6 percent increase over its 2025 budget. When asked about Figueroa’s suggestion that he lacks resources, Assistant Deputy to the County Executive Amberly Campbell declined comment.
Since FOIL’s enactment, journalists and watchdog organizations have battled government agencies over timely access to public records. In 2009, then President Barack Obama addressed the decades-long issue.
“The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears,” Obama said.
Ulster County is not alone in struggling with FOIL compliance. According to watchdog Reinvent Albany, 16 percent of all FOIL requests in New York City were still open after a year in 2024. The city’s Department of Corrections was the biggest violator, taking an average of 485 days to close FOIL requests. The Mayor’s Office was second with an average of 283 days.
Matt Leish, a media-law attorney with New York-based Klaris Law, said citizens and journalists across the state have been dealing with the same issue for years.
“It is a problem across the state, including in smaller towns, that agencies don’t comply with their obligations under the law,” Leish said. “It’s unusual for them to completely ignore requests for months, though.”
According to New York State’s Committee on Open Government’s 2024 annual report, it continues “to hear from hundreds of citizens who remain frustrated about persistent issues of compliance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Law.”
Kristen O’Neill, the committee’s deputy director and counsel, said lapses in compliance can stem from small municipalities with limited staffing or, in some cases, intentional disregard of the law.
“I do think there are a large number of municipalities that are trying to do the right thing,” O’Neill said. “Sometimes there are agencies that feel they have better things to do. And they are taking the risk that they won’t get sued.”
Jim Rich is a senior reporter for The Overlook. You can reach him at jim@theoverlooknews.com.
John W. Barry contributed reporting.