Open your records request by conceding the arithmetic is clean

A change in approach that has measurably improved my response rate from utilities.

I used to open records requests neutrally and let the utility work out whether they were being accused of something. Now, where it is true, I say plainly in the first paragraph that the audit found no billing errors, that every statement reconciles, and that no refund is being claimed by the letter.

The effect is out of proportion to the effort. Requests framed as disputes get routed to whoever handles disputes and answered defensively, item by item, with the minimum. Requests that have already conceded the arithmetic get treated as information requests and answered by someone who is not worried about what you will do with the answer.

This matters most for the questions that are favors rather than entitlements. Whether they will consider combined billing across two accounts at one address. What it would cost to reconfigure metering. Whether an exemption certificate is on file. None of those are things you can compel, and all of them are easier to get from someone who does not think you are building a case.

The obvious caveat: only do this when it is true. If there is a billing error, say so. But a lot of audits genuinely do come back clean on the arithmetic, and in those cases saying so early costs you nothing and buys real cooperation.

Keep the actual findings for the report. The letter is for getting records.

This matches what I see. The other thing that helps is naming the records by document type instead of by topic. A request for interval data for one meter, one date range, in CSV gets a clerk to a yes or a no. A request for documentation supporting the billing gets escalated and delayed. I also send the reconfiguration or combined billing question as its own email so a slow answer on one does not hold up the other.

Agree on only doing this when it is true. One refinement: I word it as the charges reconcile to the rate applied, not as no billing errors. A clean reconciliation only tells you the bills match the rate they were billed at. It says nothing about whether that was the right rate, and I do not want to have boxed myself in if the classification turns out to be the real issue later.