What Happened?
Two cities in Texas have passed ordinances that deter “serial requestors” of public records. Specifically, the cities of Corsicana and Kemah can bill citizens for staff time responding to public-information requests. In Kemah, citizens get 36 hours of staff time per fiscal year for information requests; any additional time gets charged at $15 per hour. Media and elected officials are exempt from the ordinance.
The Goal
According to media reports, the ordinances are really meant to thwart small groups of serial requestors, who can tie up local government staffers for weeks. “It’s a tremendous burden,” one lawyer told the local media. “A large portion of the staff becomes responsible for finding documents instead of taking care of running the city…taxpayers end up paying for that work rather than the cost of city governance.”
So What?
All cities and towns respond to public information requests, but how much is too much? When do citizen requests present an undue burden to the functioning of local government? This is actually a critical issue for cash-strapped municipalities with fewer staffers who need to focus on city business.
The Debate
The basics of the debate for charging “serial requestors” is as follows:
- Arguments For Charging: Voluminous requests prevent government employees from attending to city business; excessive information requests force other taxpayers to pay for private research; local municipalities have small staffs and no money…they simply can not spend hundreds of hours tracking down historical documents while also serving other citizens—charging enables them to hire temporary staff if necessary to meet citizens’ research needs.
- Arguments Against Charging: Reduces transparency; responding to information requests is not a “distraction,” but rather a core function of government; local governments wouldn’t be so burdened if they adopted document-management and retrieval software; government employees have discretion, so they will pick-and-choose who they charge; creates chilling effect of closing up government.
Precedent
There is already considerable precedent for charging citizens for public-information requests, both locally and nationally. Most of the fees are related to photocopying charges however, not limits on staff time.
Locally, the state of Texas allows cities and towns to limit the time spent on public-information requests, and to charge for such work. New York also has provisions for charging fees that include “the hourly salary attributed to the lowest paid agency employee who has the necessary skill required to prepare a copy of the requested record.” Some Wisconsin agencies, like the Department of Military Affairs, state they may charge if the cost of locating a record exceeds $50. According to the California Records Act, duplication charges are standard, but “charges for search, review or deletion are now allowed.” Hawaii has more detailed policies, with agencies able to charge “$2.50 per fifteen minutes” for search, and double that for review and segregation of records.
Nationally, policies vary tremendously by agency, but The Freedom of Information Act does provide for the charging of certain types of fees in some instances. In fact, FOIA even has a fee chart to illustrate charging guidelines. The Department of Justice, for example, typically does not charge for Freedom Of Information Requests, but sometimes charges “for the time it takes to search for records and for duplication of those records.” According to the DoJ, there is usually no charge for the first two hours of search time or for the first 100 pages of duplication. The Department of Labor also charges $0.15 per page for photocopies exceeding 100 pages.
Private Sector Lessons
The private sector has a long history of charging for information research, but—more importantly—they have experience turning away customers that have high “service costs.” That is ostensibly the argument in Texas: Some customers have high service costs, and it has become an unfair burden to service them. Forbes addressed this back in 2006, exploring how companies have dealt with customers who create losses over time. Those companies sometimes drop those clients, or use them as opportunities to drive additional revenue. And though a local government obviously can’t “fire” its citizens, it can attempt to capitalize on those with high service costs, which is what the Texas towns are doing. This approach was advocated in a study by two Wharton professors, who argued that leveraging and working with “bad” customers was preferential to firing them.
Next Steps
If considering whether to charge for “serial requestors,” make sure all necessary stakeholders—including citizens—are involved. Try to document the amount of time and money that has been spent on information requests, and how those resources would be better allocated. Once those costs and benefits are clear, it may become more obvious to stakeholders that a problem exists, and that a solution is necessary to ensure all citizens can be served better. Then, a proposal can be floated to address serial requestors that leverages the examples and guidelines above. Have a question or experience with this issue? Contact us Gov1 at any time.