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The City of St. Paul is considering hiring additional staff to help process a skyrocketing number of data requests.
City Attorney Irene Kao presented the proposed 2027 budget during a committee meeting on Wednesday, outlining the influx of requests.
“If you were to take an average of 9.5 months so far, and were to track it out, we’re on track to have 24,400 requests,” said Kao, of the inquiries so far in 2026. “That is incredibly high.”
She presented data that shows there were 668 total requests in 2017, which increased to 22,678 in 2024. Requests remained high at 21,915 in 2025.
The County Attorney’s Office is seeking to add two staff members at a cost of $226,406. There are currently 14 department designees reviewing data requests and, in August, the city hired a data practices supervisor for the office.
“Given this explosion in the number of data requests, w...
