Reps. Friend, Richardson, and Saunders have introduced HB 1175 which would essentially allow a government agency to charge for a public records request search if the search took more than two hours. The first two hours searching for responsive documents would be free, but after that the political subdivision could charge by the hour at a rate equal to whatever the employee is paid or twenty dollars an hour, whichever is less.
This strikes me as reasonable; but I don’t see anything magical about the two hours or $20. I imagine those terms are negotiable. But, I’ve seen enough kitchen sink public record requests to know that it can put a healthy burden on the government agency. To some extent, that’s just the cost of responsive government; but beyond a certain level, it becomes unfair to other taxpayers who are, in effect, subsidizing sometimes frivolous or unnecessarily burdensome public records requests.
The potential for bureaucratic abuse is too significant, especially considering the track records in Indiana. Bad law.
Is there going to be a standard for labor, like with auto repair? Otherwise, jurisdictions can drag their feet, say it took eleventy billion hours to make a simple search, and stick the citizen with the fee. I’d say you’re better off putting up with a few nuts rather than restricting access for everyone.
Considering that the only current law is that public officials have to RESPOND to a request (IE recognize they received it) within a certain amount of days and can take as long as they want to actually fulfill or deny the request, I think that is appropriate so that it doesn’t burden any public employee from their daily tasks.
There’s a whole host of things that should change about public record requests, access to them, etc… but I don’t think this one is necessary. It wouldn’t put too much of a burden on news agencies, but neighborhood groups and smaller interest groups could be burdened by these types of fees.
You have to provide the documents within a “reasonable time” – what is deemed reasonable will vary with the scope of the request.
I’d just like some kind of burden on the citizen to make sure they’re being thoughtful about the public resources they’re using. When some small government zealot decides to go fishing and says, “I want every e-mail or other letter from Official X from January 1, 1995 – Present”; almost none of them are going to acknowledge that the tax dollars they have just encumbered is wasted money that won’t be available to fulfill the core missions of government.
I’m not calling for secrecy; just some incentive for citizens to be judicious when they make these requests.
Having had some experience in this area would agree that some government officals do play games with requests. But, anyone involved for very long in government work will have several stories that are of the nature that Doug mentions. Some people perhaps being serious and others simply wanting to harass will ask for unbelievable materials. The law does not require creation of materials that do not exist and allowance for reasonable time may not be that official is balking. For more information on real world incidents involving a good resource is the website of the Indiana Public Access counselor where 250 cases or more per year will be filed either complaining of open door violations or access issues.