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By Elizabeth Caldwell, Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK -- Knowledge is money for Johnny Dillard.

He has had difficulty gaining both in Arkansas over the last few months because of complications in obtaining public records, he says.

He and other land brokers make their living by knowing what tax-delinquent lands are for sale.

Dillard contends state Land Commissioner Charlie Daniels' office has thwarted his attempts to obtain electronically the information he needs.

Dillard says he has been writing and calling the office since August in an attempt to obtain public information.

"The land commissioner's initial delay,

stall, and eventual refusal to give me the information I requested in the manner set forth by the law caused me to feel that the average citizen could not depend on or trust the elected officials," Dillard said in an e-mail response to reporter questions.

It is more complex than Dillard makes it sound, according to an official in Daniels’ office.

"It's not that we are unwilling to give the information. It is we do not have a [computer] program," said Peggy Barnes, deputy commissioner.

But, the office may have developed a way to satisfactorily provide information.

Because of so many difficult requests that made it impossible for the office to provide timely responses to requests made under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, Barnes said it was decided to put all records on the office's Web site. The office has had a site on the Internet about two years, but until last week, it had not contained a way to access office records.

Barnes said the information will be updated quarterly.

Although Dillard has experienced past problems, he is delighted with the new policy.

"I'm very pleased with what they have done," Dillard said. "The information is as good or better than any state in the union," he said.

Making the records available that way allows people to search for particular information to meet their needs, Barnes said.

Citizens of the state also will continue to be able to peruse the information in the office files. Almost everything is public except for sealed bids that have not been opened.

Dillard, 51, claims Clarksville as home, although he spends much of his time out of state. He owns a home in Fort Smith and is registered to vote there.

Dillard often contacts owners of property before it can be sold at auction and offers to buy it.

If he is successful, he gets the deed transferred, pays off the tax debt and sells the land for a profit.

Everybody wins, Dillard says. The owner gets something for his land, the government receives its tax revenue, and he makes money.

Dillard operates such ventures in several states, but his home state has been a problem area, he claims.

As a result of not getting timely information, he missed the opportunity to contact land owners before the Nov. 4 land sale in Pulaski County, he said. The next sale is not until May.

The information he has sought is public under the state FOI Act, both Dillard and Daniels' staff agree.

The law requires immediate access to records unless they are in use or storage; then the record must be provided within three days. But the land commissioner’s office is not equipped to respond to individual requests for voluminous amounts of information that must be compiled electronically, Barnes said.

That problem is shared by other offices attempting to respond to requests for electronic records, according to Susan Cromwell of Little Rock, co-chair of the Electronic Records Study Commission.

The commission was created this year by the Legislature to make recommendations on amending the FOI Act concerning access to electronic records.

"It's an evolutionary thing with technology," said Cromwell, director of the Office of Information Technology of the state Department of Information Systems.

The commission is trying to identify the issues faced by local and state governments in responding to FOI requests, she said.

"The theme that is consistent throughout is there is more demand for electronic records than the system can provide," Cromwell said.

Some of the requests the land commissioner's office has received in the last few months ask for certain pieces of information to be pulled from hundreds, even thousands, of files, Barnes said.

"Its a huge database," she said, noting that it includes 230,000 parcel records and one million records in the tax table.

Filling the request is no problem if a computer program already exists. When a separate program must be written, it puts a strain on the lone employee possessing the skills to comply, she said.

"One request asked for all the data in the office, which is over one gigabyte and would take 700 to 800 floppy disks," said Scott Lawrence, who writes programs for the office.

In addition, land commissioner employees balked when several people asked that information be sent to them by electronic mail.

"The office has always responded by (regular) mail. It's not that we're stingy with the information," Barnes said.

She turned to the Attorney General Mark Pryor's office for advice.

Karen Wallace, assistant attorney general, said the FOI law doesn't require an office to write a special program to comply with a request, but she advised Barnes to go the extra mile.

That resulted in the decision to go the Internet route.

As for Dillard's FOI request, the land commissioner's office finally filled it the week before the information was put on the Internet.

Dillard, who began asking for information in August, had threatened to file a lawsuit. The request was for an electronic copy of the fourth quarter land sales plus the addresses of those having properties foreclosed because of nonpayment of property taxes.

At first, he said, the office said it would gather the information. After several delays, he was told the information would not be forthcoming, he said.

"I don't know that that's true. I can't imagine that it's true," Barnes said.

He received some of the information in early November, too late to contact land owners before the sale. He asked for additional information in a Nov. 16 letter.

After several delays, including a floppy disk apparently lost in the mail, Dillard received some of that information Dec. 3.

Dillard also has asked for the names and addresses of all persons who have land being foreclosed on during the second quarter of next year.

Though the office receives records of delinquent lands two years before it offers them for sale, Barnes said that information is not compiled yet.

"It's out there, the individual record on every parcel," she said. "We have not pulled together the ones that remain delinquent to print for a catalog, and won't until March.”

Barnes said staff will spend January, February and March researching the parcels. Staff looks for changes in ownership, verifies descriptions with county assessors and does limited title research.

The office prepares a catalog of the lands for sale and mails out 35,000 copies one month before the sale.

Dillard said the office gives others specially prepared information, so why not him?

Barnes acknowledged that the office provides certain information on computer disk to several people in and out of the state. Most of the information concerns excess proceeds, she said.

Excess proceeds refers to the money left after the office sells a tax-delinquent parcel and all taxes and liens are paid. The owner is allowed to claim any excess proceeds.

People contact the owners and offer to act as an agent to claim the funds, Barnes said.

John Ryles of Scott is one of those who has obtained information on computer disk from the commissioner’s office. He and his son, Jason Ryles of Little Rock, operate Refund Recovery Service.

Ryles said he found the office cooperative, though he experienced a delay in obtaining information at first.

"It took them a while to get that done because nobody had ever asked for it that way," he said.

Ryles said as a former state employee — he was administrator of the office of budget under Govs. Dale Bumpers and David Pryor — he knew he had a right to the information under the FOI Act.

Barnes said the office also is starting to request that counties send the land information on magnetic disks so the information can be processed more quickly.

Still, state law requires the office to have a paper copy of the records on hand.

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The land commissioner's Web site can be found at: www.state.ar.us/land/land.html

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