SPRINGFIELD — Changes to the state's Freedom of Information Act which would remove a requirement that government agencies seek permission before denying the release of records and add a layer of protection against "recurrent requesters" passed both houses this week and await Gov. Pat Quinn's signature.

Locally, officials say it will not change a whole lot about how they release records.

If approved, the revised law (HB1716) would define a "recurrent requester" as someone who has filed 50 requests for records with a government agency within a year, 15 requests in a month or seven requests in a week. That provision exempts members of the news media and nonprofit, scientific or academic organizations.

The law would allow government agencies 21 business days — as opposed to the usual five — to issue a response to a "recurrent requester." Even then, the agency is not required to release or deny the records — only give an estimate of how much time it will take to provide the records. And the public body must comply "within a reasonable period considering the size and complexity of the request."

The agency may also require that the "recurrent requester" pay in advance for fees that may be assessed to cover research and copying costs.

The objective of the new provision is to deter people who supposedly had been abusing the law to harass government agencies.

"For the average, everyday citizen," it is probably not the best requirement, said Josh Sharp, director of government relations for the Illinois Press Association.

But local FOIA officers do not report any issues with the so-called recurrent requesters.

"We deal with FOIA so infrequently," said Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten, that recurrent requesters have never been a problem.

"Everything that happens in this office is public, and so it's my instinct just to put it all on our website to start with," Hulten said. He added that, in most cases, he tries to provide the information before a formal request is filed.

And Champaign City Clerk Marilyn Banks said the city has never had an issue with recurrent requesters, either.

Another change to the law removes a requirement that government agencies seek permission when they wish to deny the release of records. When a vastly rewritten FOIA went into effect on Jan. 1, 2010, the changes created the public access counselor's office, which must approve governments' denials in certain cases.

Removing that "pre-authorization" step is designed to relieve a backlogged public access counselor's office, which also deals with the appeals of citizens who believe they have been wrongly denied. The office reviewed about 3,200 pre-authorization requests last year.

"Right now, that's 68 percent of what the public access counselor does is pre-authorization," Sharp said.

Removing that step will allow the public access counselor to "really concentrate on enforcement," Sharp said. He said he expects the office to issue more binding opinions, which are seldom-used rulings that force a government agency to comply with a request for records.

When a citizen who feels he has wrongly been denied records from a government agency files an appeal with the public access counselor, the office may issue a nonbinding or binding opinion if the public body is found to have incorrectly denied the records. The office reviewed more than 1,900 appeals last year and issued four binding opinions.

So far this year, the office has issued five binding opinions, and Sharp expects that tool to be used more frequently.

Among other changes, the legislation:

— Authorizes a public body to charge a records requester, except members of the news media, for the actual cost of retrieving and transporting public records from an off-site storage facility when the records are maintained by a third-party storage company under contract with that public body.

— Authorizes a public body to charge a fee up to $10 per hour spent by personnel in searching for and retrieving records to comply with a commercial request.

— Specifies that a person whose records request is made for a commercial purpose may not file a request for review with the public access counselor, except to determine whether the public body accurately characterized the request as a commercial request.