Look at you! I was just making a joke...never thought I’d actually get feedback from someone there with eyes on the books. Thank you for the insider info!
You’re welcome.
If you ever request data from the State of California under the Public Records Act (aka PRA) then follow this helpful advice:
1. Start by requesting ONLY metadata. Like you want to know about purchases, right? So ONLY ask for the total number of purchase orders for a department in a given fiscal year.
2. When you get the metadata THEN ask for the vendor details for each purchase order.
3. Make sure the number of purchase orders in both requests matches up. If not then sue for the whole list now that you have the metadata that says the actual number of transactions.