On Feb. 13, reporters and other representatives from 41 Florida news organizations banded together to test how well government agencies handle public records requests made by everyday citizens.

Reporters shed their titles and asked for records that should be quickly available to any citizen from four agencies: county governments, city hall, school boards and sheriff’s offices.

The audit, organized by Florida’s First Amendment Foundation, tracked how often agencies refused to turn over public records and which agencies made unlawful requirements as a condition of providing them.

Locally, agencies passed with flying colors. However, some surrounding counties didn’t do so well.

The results for the audit conducted in Suwannee County found that county government, the city of Live Oak, School Board Offices and the Sheriff’s Office were in compliance with the law regarding access to public records. Madison and Columbia Counties had three to four violations of the public records law. Hamilton and Gilchrist Counties had five to six violations. Lafayette County was not audited due to time.

Volunteers attempted to audit 268 agencies in the state’s 67 counties plus four state agencies. In the end, about 50 agencies weren’t included in the results because they reported that they didn’t have the records requested or the auditor did not follow instructions and the audit had to be discounted.

The Herald-Tribune of Sarasota provided results from a similar audit done in 2004. The numbers were provided as a point of reference but should not be considered a direct statistical comparison because of differences in methodology and execution of the two audits.

This year, the requested documents, all public records under Florida Statute 119, were: School districts, municipalities and county governments’ e-mails or other correspondence between the top administrator and members of the elected body such as the school board or city council. If none existed for that time period, the most recent were requested.

For sheriff’s’ offices a log of calls made to the dispatch center over the previous 48 hours was requested. When inspection of the log was allowed, the volunteer asked for the report on a specific incident.

The newspapers also requested documents from a sample of state agencies: Travel expenses for January 2006 from Attorney General Charlie Crist and Tom Gallagher, chief financial officer for the Department of Financial Services; e-mails from top officials in Gov. Bush’s administration for a week in February and a report on calls made to the Elder Help Line run by the state Department of Elder Affairs.

The protocol called for volunteers to behave as “regular citizens” with only a limited knowledge of Florida’s public records law. They were instructed to be polite and to keep the audit secret.

State law does not require a person asking for public records to provide a name, a reason for the request, identification or a written request. To test that anonymity, volunteers responded to questions that could reveal their identity or intent by asking, “Is that information necessary for you to fulfill my request?”

If officials insisted on getting the information they were marked as violating the public records law.

Audit organizers determined that an hour was a reasonable amount of time to wait for access to the records.

If volunteers left an office with confirmation that the records would be provided at a later date, it was considered compliance. If an hour passed without an assurance that the request would be fulfilled, the visit was counted as non-compliance. Reporters were told not to lie about their occupation if asked.

Participating news organizations were: The Associated Press, The Baker County Press, Bradenton Herald, Bradford County Telegraph, Caloosa Belle (La Belle), Charlotte Sun-Herald, Chiefland Citizen, Citrus County Chronicle, Daytona Beach News-Journal, Dixie County Advocate, News-Leader (Fernandina Beach), Florida Press Association, The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), Florida Today (Melbourne), The Gainesville Sun, Hernando Today, Jackson County Floridian, Key West Citizen, Lake Region Monitor, The Ledger (Lakeland), Madison County Carrier, The Miami Herald, Naples Daily News, The News Herald (Panama City), News-Press (Fort Myers), Ocala Star-Banner, Orlando Sentinel, Palatka Daily News, Palm Beach Post, Pensacola News Journal, Press Journal (Vero Beach), Herald-Tribune (Sarasota), The St. Augustine Record, St. Petersburg Times, The Star (Gulf and Franklin counties), Sumter County Times, Suwannee Democrat, Tallahassee Democrat, The Tampa Tribune, Union County Times and Wakulla News.