SALEM — Questions raised last fall about former Oregon first lady Cylvia Hayes’ contracting business triggered a flood of public records requests that state employees are still working to address.

Willamette Week broke the story on Oct. 8 when it published “First Lady, Inc.,” which detailed the overlap between Hayes’ consulting contracts and her work as an unpaid green energy and economic development adviser to her fiance, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber. The story also provided the first glimpse at Hayes’ use of state resources to benefit her business, for example her use of a state employee to schedule consulting appointments.

The Governor’s Office received 181 public records requests from Oct. 8 through Feb. 18, the date Kitzhaber’s resignation took effect, according to an analysis of figures provided by the governor’s office and its records log.

As of Oct. 7, the Governor’s Office had received 136 public records requests in 2014. That number was probably already higher than usual because Kitzhaber was running for reelection.

The Brown administration also faces the much larger task of providing records to a subpoena from a federal grand jury investigating Kitzhaber and Hayes.

“Our preliminary estimates put the number of responsive documents to the subpoena at more than 1 million,” Brown spokesman Chris Pair wrote in an email.

Two employees of the state Department of Justice are assisting the governor’s office with processing the records requests.

A state DOJ attorney is also helping process records at the Department of Administrative Services, which has also received numerous records requests related to Hayes and Kitzhaber. Senior Assistant Attorney General Tim Smith is assisting with responses to public records requests at the Department of Administrative Services, as well as with subpoenas “in investigations related to former Governor Kitzhaber, Cylvia Hayes and other entities,” chief operating officer Michael Jordan wrote in an email to Enterprise Technology Services employees on Feb. 20.

Pair offered a snapshot of how Brown and Kitzhaber’s administrations have handled public records requests. Kitzhaber received 207 public records requests from Oct. 1 through Feb. 18, and 108 of those requests were processed and closed during that period.

From the time Brown was sworn into office Feb. 18 through the morning of March 4, her office received 22 public records requests and legal staff closed seven of those requests. Employees also closed out three requests from the Kitzhaber administration during that time, Pair wrote.

— This story first appeared in the Oregon Capital Insider newsletter. To subscribe, go to oregoncapitalinsider.com