# 2026-05 DFA FOIA Routing Auto-Replies Between 2026-05-22 and 2026-05-28, the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration's `[email protected]` shared mailbox generated two automatic replies to [[Joshua Dunlap]]'s correspondence on the Act 548 qualified-data-center sales/use-tax exemption administration FOIA request. The first, from [[Janis Bartlett]]'s retired-but-still-forwarded account, identified [[Adrianne Larison]] as the active FOIA contact and provided her email and phone. The second, from [[Scott Hardin]]'s active account, identified him as out of the office until 2026-06-01 and offered a cell number for deadline-pressing matters. Together the two auto-replies are the wiki's only inbound correspondence from DFA on the request through 2026-05-28; neither is a substantive response under Ark. Code § 25-19-105(e). ## Sources This is a FOIA-correspondence event; its record lives in Gmail, not in `raw/`. Both auto-replies were grouped by Gmail into a single thread because each carries the `Automatic reply:` subject prefix, which breaks normal threading from the substantive FOIA chain. - Auto-reply thread `19e50c9c1ff1d603` ([Gmail](https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#all/19e50c9c1ff1d603)), subject *"Automatic reply: Arkansas FOIA Request — Act 548 Qualified Data Center Tax Exemption Administration, Certifications, and Eligible-Equipment Lists."* - Auto-reply #1 — `[email protected]`, 2026-05-22 17:42:24 UTC (msg `19e50c9c1ff1d603`). Triggered 17 seconds after the first-follow-up send at 17:42:07 UTC. - Auto-reply #2 — `[email protected]`, 2026-05-28 14:39:53 UTC (msg `19e6f0ac57edc8b0`). Triggered 19 seconds after the second-escalation send at 14:39:34 UTC. - The substantive FOIA chain on the request lives in a separate thread, `19e41be03d84c3f0`. The two threads are not Gmail-linked. ## What happened **Auto-reply #1 — Janis Bartlett (2026-05-22).** Bartlett's account, listed as a forwarding recipient of the `[email protected]` shared mailbox, returned an automatic reply identifying her as retired and nominating [[Adrianne Larison]] as the active FOIA contact: *"Jan Bartlett has retired from DFA. If you need assistance, please contact Adrianne Larison at [email protected] or 501.682.5102. Thank you."* The auto-reply did not surface in [[Joshua Dunlap|Joshua]]'s working inbox view until 2026-05-28, after the second escalation had already been sent without a redirect to Larison. **Auto-reply #2 — Scott Hardin (2026-05-28).** Hardin's account, separately listed as a forwarding recipient of the same shared mailbox, returned an automatic reply identifying him as out of the office until 2026-06-01 and providing a cell number for deadline-pressing matters: *"I am out of the office until Monday, June 1. If you are on deadline, please text me at 501-352-9351 and I will coordinate a response. Thank you. Scott Hardin / DFA."* **Wiki response.** On 2026-05-28 at 15:44:09 UTC, [[Joshua Dunlap]] sent a courtesy-redirect email to Larison (msg `19e6f41e0db7b6e4`, fresh thread `19e6f2355e1bfe62`, To: `[email protected]`, subject *"Arkansas FOIA Request — Act 548 Data Center Tax Exemption (routing per 5/22 auto-reply)"*). The cover note explained the routing discovery; the full text of the 2026-05-28 second escalation was reproduced below a divider for Larison's convenience. The redirect did not use `replyToMessageId` and occupies its own fresh thread rather than threading into the substantive FOIA chain on the shared mailbox. ## Significance Three corpus-relevant facts emerge from the auto-reply pair: **1. `[email protected]` is a multi-recipient forwarding mailbox.** Both Bartlett (retired) and Hardin (active) receive forwarded mail from the shared address. The mailbox itself does not generate a substantive acknowledgment under Ark. Code § 25-19-105(e); responses come, if at all, from one or more of the personal accounts in the forwarding chain. This is the wiki's first concrete signal that the Department's FOIA workflow distributes inbound correspondence across multiple personnel rather than routing through a single dedicated custodian. **2. The Department has had a named active FOIA contact since 2026-05-22 and the wiki had no visibility of it.** Larison was offered as the active substantive contact six days before the second escalation went out. Because the Bartlett auto-reply was not surfaced in the working inbox until after the second escalation had been sent, the second escalation was directed only to the shared mailbox — not to Larison directly. The courtesy-redirect drafted on 2026-05-28 closes that routing gap before the EOB 2026-06-03 administrative deadline. **3. The constructive-denial framing on the substantive thread retains a procedural footnote.** [[2026-05 Second FOIA Escalation Round|The second escalation]] asserts that *"six working days have since elapsed with no response, no production, and no written time-extension notice."* That is strictly true under § 25-19-105(e) — an HR-level personnel-redirect auto-reply does not satisfy the statutory response obligation, which requires the Department to acknowledge receipt and either produce records, deny the request with a basis, or set a date for production. But it is not "complete silence." A clean record post-2026-06-03 will acknowledge the Bartlett auto-reply as procedural (a routing notice), the Hardin auto-reply as procedural (an OOO notice), and the substantive § 25-19-105(e) clock as nevertheless having run.