Access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a right of every person in this state. Records of the Auditor that are not exempt from disclosure under the law are available for inspection and copying in accordance with the Ohio Public Records Act.

You may view the records you have requested at all reasonable times during the regular business hours of this office. If you wish to view public records at our office, we will promptly make them available to you. If you wish to receive copies of records, we will provide them within a reasonable period of time. "Prompt" and "reasonable" consider the volume of records requested; the proximity of the location where the records are stored; and the necessity for any legal review of the records requested.

Once we have received your request, we will provide our response or acknowledge your request and provide you with an estimate of when you should expect our response, an estimated cost if copies have been requested, and the items (if any) that we expect may be exempt from disclosure. If at any time prior to completing our response, we believe our response will take longer than initially estimated (because of the volume of records requested, the proximity of location where the records are stored, or the complexity of the legal review), we will inform you of this change.

If any portion of your request for records must be denied because the records are exempt from disclosure under the law, we will inform you which records you have requested are not public by clearly marking the portion "redacted" or we will explain which portions of the record(s) have been redacted. In addition, we will provide you with the legal authority upon which we have relied.

Note: if your request has been denied it could be that the request made was overbroad, ambiguous, or doesn't reasonably identify our records. Information will be provided about how our records are maintained, and if you wish, you may revise your request for the records.

A fee for copies of public records may be charged which covers the direct costs of duplication incurred by the office; currently this fee is $.05 per page and $1.00 per CD-ROM. In addition, actual costs of postage or other delivery may be charged. We may require payment of these fees prior to processing your request. It is the policy of the office to waive charges to a requester for duplication of 20 pages or less per month.