The Texas Public Information Act (PIA) — Texas Government Code Chapter 552 — gives any person the right to request records held by governmental bodies, including independent school districts. On May 4, 2026, LION filed six PIA requests with Allen Independent School District covering library catalog data; the proposed 818-title library materials purchase (estimated cost, vendors, and purchase orders); library reconsideration records; library deselection and weeding records; Local School Library Advisory Council (LSLAC — the campus-level advisory body required under Texas Education Code §33.025) meeting records; and Texas Education Agency (TEA — the state agency that oversees public education in Texas) certification records. The requests are tracked as ALLENISD-PIA-003 through ALLENISD-PIA-008.
On May 27, 2026, an itemized cost estimate covering all six requests was transmitted to LION. The aggregate estimate was $668. Production of further records was conditioned on the posting of a bond. A response window of ten business days was set.
The $668 figure was composed of three elements: a $20 jump-drive fee for the media on which records would be delivered; 2,162 minutes of personnel labor charged at $15 per hour; and a 20 percent overhead allocation layered on top of the labor charge. The labor charge alone — roughly 36 hours at the cited rate — accounted for the majority of the estimate.
The bond requirement was framed as a precondition to the district producing further responsive records on the six requests. Under Texas Government Code §552.263, a governmental body may, in limited circumstances, require a deposit or bond from a requestor whose anticipated charges exceed statutory thresholds. The statute also sets specific procedural requirements that must be satisfied before a bond may be demanded.
The ten-business-day response window on the cost estimate and bond demand runs against the original May 4 records requests, which remain in clarification posture under Texas Government Code §552.222. The substantive legal response to the bond demand is documented in the next update.
