The GRC has been criticized for the amount of time it takes to rule on complaints, but it’s worth noting that the agency now issues many more contested case decisions at each meeting than it did during its first several years of existence.

The GRC recently reported that it receives about 300 complaints per month, totaling approximately 4000 complaints since it was created. Many of these complaints are eventually withdrawn, settled or dismissed as clearly without merit. The remaining cases are contested and result in the GRC’s issuance of often lengthy opinions containing comprehensive analysis of the parties’ arguments regarding the various records and issues involved in the case.

I looked at the opinions issued at each meeting in this category of contested cases and found that the number of these decisions has substantially increased. In its first decade (2002 through 2011), the GRC issued around 15-20 of such decisions at each monthly meeting. For example, in 2008 it averaged 19 substantive decisions per meeting and in 2010 the average was 22.

But beginning in 2012, this number increased to over 30 per meeting. Over the most recent 12-month period, June 2014-June 2015, the GRC has issued an average of 36 substantive case decisions per meeting.

This near doubling of the number of substantive decisions issued each month suggests that the GRC is operating much more efficiently than previously.