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For Kansas public records, identify every public agency likely to hold the relevant file and work with each agency’s custodian under KORA. Keep Judicial Branch case searches in a separate court trail and never convert one agency’s response into a statewide absence.
Kansas explicitly rejects the idea of one all-records repository
The Kansas Attorney General’s KORA guidance answers the routing question directly: there is no one central agency that can supply all public records. Each public agency has its own custodian. When a project spans several government functions, build a list of likely agencies and treat each response as an independent search rather than sending one broad request and calling it statewide.
The same guidance also separates formality from clarity. An agency can require the request to be written, but it cannot force use of a single mandatory form. The useful part of the request is the description of the existing record and the identification of the agency that maintains it.
Use two different Kansas paths for agency records and court cases
State or local agency record
Administrative material held by a Kansas public agency
Contact that agency’s record custodian and follow its KORA procedure.
District court case
A case searchable by name or case/record number
Use the Judicial Branch public portal and preserve the search terms and case identifier.
Several agencies involved
The same subject touched separate public bodies
Run separate scoped searches and compare only after each source is labeled.
Build a Kansas request around the public agency that owns the file
1
Map the record to a public functionA license, contract, inspection, property action, school decision or law-enforcement event points to different custodians.2
Find the agency’s custodian or freedom-of-information contactUse the agency’s published procedure instead of sending the request to an unrelated statewide office.3
Describe the existing materialUse dates, record type, address, case reference or other known identifiers; a concise written request remains portable even when an agency offers its own form.4
Label the result at agency levelA no-record response should remain a finding about that custodian, not a conclusion about all Kansas records.Keep Kansas evidence lanes distinct
| Lane | Primary evidence | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| KORA agency request | Records located by the named public agency | Other Kansas agencies were not searched |
| Judicial public portal | District court case information for the submitted search | Administrative agency files are outside that portal |
| Direct agency publication | Official document or dataset already posted | Unpublished records remain outside the displayed source |