The size of fees an agency charges for access to electronic data are critical to many requesters. Arbitrary and prohibitively high fees can undercut a requester’s ability to utilize freedom of information laws. There are nearly as many approaches to fees as there are states. Fees for computer time, programming time, printouts, supplies, labor and overhead may be assessed against the requester.

Many states have just started to address fee schedules for electronic records access. Texas was one of the first states to outline charges for databases. The Texas General Service Commission established suggested charges for diskettes and fees for access time on various types of computers.

Many statutes state that an agency may not charge more than “actual cost.” Connecticut requires that fees for a “printout of transcription . . . shall not exceed the cost thereof to the public agency.”

Some states allow additional fees for computer records. For instance, Indiana law permits an agency to charge “the standard cost, if any, for selling the same information in the form of a publication.” When accessing the Indiana legislative services agency, a requester may be charged “a reasonable percentage of the agency’s direct cost of maintaining the system in which the information is stored.”

Some statutes prohibit agencies from charging for the time to search electronically stored documents. Others say agencies may assess a fee for that service. States also split on whether agencies may or must grant fee waivers to reporters or other requesters when disclosure is in the public interest.

The market value of disclosed electronic government records should have no bearing on their cost to the public, which has already paid for gathering and storing requested information. Fiscally strapped agencies may see the sale of government information as a means of generating revenue.

In a few states, journalists are running into agencies that want to charge them “commercial” fees. Commercial requesters are treated differently in some states.

Reporters for The Daily Oklahoman ran into this problem when they asked the county assessor for copies of his property assessment and sales data and plat maps. The assessor argued that because the newspaper also does database marketing and direct mail marketing for paying clients, he could charge the full commercial rate for the data unless they only asked for specific data planned for use in a specific story. He also argued that keeping the data after the specific story ran would make it a commercial use.

But Oklahoma’s records law makes a distinction between “commercial” requests for records and “public good” requests: “Publication in a newspaper or by broadcast news media for news purposes shall not constitute a resale or use of data for trade or commercial purpose and charges for a news purpose shall not exceed the direct cost of making the copy.”

Because agencies sometimes assess inflated costs for computer time, requesters may want to question high charges. The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, based at the University of Missouri, suggests that a requester who is charged by the minute should multiply the per-minute charge claimed by the agency by the 525,600 minutes in a year and compare the result to the actual yearly expense the agency pays for operating the computer services. Also, if an agency is charging for programming time, find out what the salary for the programmer is to see if it is charging a fair fee.

Requesters should refer to the statutes, official regulations and informal policies of each office if they have questions about fees agencies charge.