The U.S. Department of Defense released its annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2021, which reportedly cost the agency $158,000 to prepare. Highlights include:
52,805 requests received, a decrease of 2.3 percent from FY 2020 (54,023 requests)
50,703 requests processed, an increase of 1.4 percent from FY 2020 (50,006 requests)
17,597 backlogged requests, an increase of 10 percent from FY 2020 (16,000 requests)
32.03 average days to process simple requests, an increase of 36 percent from FY 2020 (25.55 days)
351.61 average days to process complex requests, an increase of 55.5 percent from FY 2020 (226.12 days)
Total FOIA costs: $105,262,515, a 10.2 percent increase from FY 2020 ($95,483,885)