§2-G-6 | AUTHORITY TO CHARGE FOR DEVELOPMENT, OVERHEAD, OR TRAVEL COSTS
The Public Records Act does not authorize the addition of overhead costs such as utilities or other office expenses to the charge for public records. AGO 99-41. Similarly, an agency may not charge for travel time to obtain public records stored off-premises. AGO 90-07. For example, if municipal pension records are stored in a records storage facility outside city limits, the city may not pass along to the public records requester the costs to retrieve the records. Inf. Op. to Sugarman, September 5, 1997. Cf. Cone & Graham, Inc. v. State, No. 97-4047 (Fla. 2d Cir. Ct. October 7, 1997), available online in the Cases database at the open government site at MyFloridaLegal.com (an agency’s decision to “archive” older e-mail messages on tapes so that they could not be retrieved or printed without a systems programmer was analogous to an agency’s decision to store records off-premises in that the agency rather than the requester must bear the costs for retrieving the records).
An agency may not assess fees designed to recoup the original cost of developing or producing the records. AGO 88-23 (state attorney not authorized to impose a charge to recover part of costs incurred in production of a training program; the fee to obtain a copy of the videotape of such program is limited to the actual cost of duplication of the tape). And see State, Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services v. Southpointe Pharmacy, 636 So. 2d 1377, 1382 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) (once a transcript of an administrative hearing is filed with the agency, the transcript becomes a public record regardless of who ordered the transcript or paid for the transcription; the agency can charge neither the parties nor the public a fee that exceeds the charges authorized in the Public Records Act). Cf. s. 119.07(4)(b), F.S., providing that the charge for copies of county maps or aerial photographs supplied by county constitutional officers may also include a reasonable charge for the labor and overhead associated with their duplication.
Therefore, unless a specific request for copies requires extensive clerical or supervisory assistance or extensive use of information technology resources so as to trigger the special service charge authorized by s. 119.07(4)(d), F.S., an agency may charge only the actual cost of duplication for copies of computerized public records. AGO 99-41. The imposition of the service charge, however, is dependent upon the nature or volume of records requested, not on the cost to either develop or maintain the records or the database system. Id.
Use these in conjunction with the Guide for Filing Criminal Charges against an Agency/Officer that Violates Public Records Law.
As always, please get the justice you deserve.
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