Public Access Counselor Searchable Index Databases

The Illinois Public Access Counselor’s office (PAC) of the Attorney General is the state agency charged with answering Open Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act inquiries from the public, the press, and government bodies. The PAC has the ability to issue binding and nonbinding opinions, otherwise known as Determination Letters. 

 PAC Determination Letter Index:
Access the Index 
 
Determination Letters are non-binding opinions issued by the PAC. Most of the thousands of complaints the PAC receives are resolved informally or through Determination Letters.  
 
Determination letters have tremendous value because the legal analysis for Determination Letters and Binding Opinions is substantively identical; thus they reveal how the Attorney General’s Office interprets open government statutes. Prior to this index, access to a Determination Letter is limited to having to file a FOIA request to the Attorney General’s Office.   
 
CAC has thus far received over 1,000 determination letters from the PAC's office. Those letters that have been analyzed can be perused in this easily searchable index, which will be updated on an ongoing basis as resources allow. 
 
The Index is sorted by Column I, FOIA/OMA Statute Cited. To search for keywords use the Find Feature (Control F or Command F). 

 PAC Binding Letters Index  
 
In 2020, the CAC expanded the PAC project to include binding opinions, which the PAC’s office issues only a handful of each year. While PAC opinions are posted on the AG’s website, they are functionally impractical to utilize because they are posted in individual PDF files and searching through them is cumbersome and difficult to identify which opinions offer insight into a particular provision of the Open Meetings Act or Freedom of Information Act an individual is searching.    ​

The CAC compiled more than 12 dozen binding opinions into a searchable database that includes links to the PDF opinions, information on the subject matter and public body implicated in each. The index will be updated as resources allow.