WILL v. DPI

On August 13, 2025, WILL requested records from DPI of applicants denied an educator license since 2018 for failing to complete an approved program. After months of silence, DPI finally acknowledged locating 1,381 denied applications but demanded an unauthorized $17,007 to “review them by hand” at $49.26 per hour. After WILL attempted to narrow the request, DPI raised the cost of the records from $17,007 to $34,014. DPI ignored a final effort to resolve the matter on June 12, 2026, leaving WILL with no choice but to sue.

Wisconsin’s Open Records Law authorizes only limited fees for producing public records, and those fees may not exceed an agency’s actual, necessary, and direct costs. Manually reviewing by hand and screenshotting each denied application are not actual, necessary, and direct costs the DPI may impose. Even if the DPI could charge for those tasks, DPIs unreasonable delay in responding to the request, coupled with its excessive $34,014 fee, amounts to an unlawful denial of access to public records. WILL is asking the court to order production of the records and impose the remedies authorized by Wisconsin law.