The log is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the record that proves you responded on time, cited the right exemptions, and charged the right fee. Here is what it has to capture, and a free template that captures it.
Every obligation Michigan FOIA puts on a public body turns into a date, a decision, or a dollar amount. The response deadline is a date. The extension is a date plus a document. The denial is a decision with citations attached. The fee is a calculation you may have to defend in circuit court. A request log is simply the place where all of that lives in one row, so that six months later, when a requester appeals or a board member asks, the answer takes thirty seconds instead of an afternoon of searching an inbox.
There is a second reason to keep it well. The log is a public record, and it is one of the first things an experienced requester asks for. A tidy log signals an office that takes the statute seriously. A gappy one invites the follow-up requests that consume your month.
Each column earns its place by answering a question the law will eventually ask:
A spreadsheet does the remembering, but a person still has to do the arithmetic and the noticing. The receipt rule has to be applied by hand on every email. Business-day math has to dodge holidays. The due-date column does not turn red by itself, and nobody is watching it on the Friday of a holiday weekend. None of that is fatal at three requests a year. At three requests a week it becomes the job, and the failure mode is quiet: the log looks fine right up until a response goes out late and the labor recovery on a big request drops by half. We wrote an honest breakdown of when the spreadsheet holds up and when it does not in spreadsheet vs. FOIA software.
In Dekree the log keeps itself. A request arriving through your portal or forwarded inbox creates its own row: received date with the electronic-receipt rule applied, response deadline computed with holiday-aware business-day math, the one extension tracked, exemption citations captured from the drafted response, and the fee trail attached. The clerk reviews and approves every outbound response; the record trail writes itself, and your existing spreadsheet imports on day one.
The statute does not use the word "log," but it requires things only a log can prove: a response within 5 business days (MCL 15.235), exemption citations in every denial (MCL 15.243), an itemized fee worksheet (MCL 15.234(4)), and deposit timelines including the 45-day abandonment rule (MCL 15.234(14)). When a dispute arrives, the office with a complete log wins on the facts.
Yes. The log is a public record of the public body, and requesters and reporters ask for it routinely. That is a reason to keep it clean and factual: it will eventually be read by someone outside your office.
The received date. A request sent by email or fax is not received until one business day after transmission (MCL 15.235(1)), and an email found in a spam folder is received one day after the body becomes aware of it. Offices that log the send date start the clock early; offices that log the read date start it late.
This article is educational information for Michigan public bodies, current as of the publication date. It is not legal advice, and statutes and court decisions change. Confirm specifics with your municipal attorney. Statute text: legislature.mi.gov.