At its Oct. 20 meeting, the parish council voted 7-1 to table an ordinance that would charge residents fees for copies of electronic records they receive through public record requests.
The ordinance, which was introduced by Parish President Matthew Jewell at the council’s Oct. 6 meeting, would add a fee of 50 cents per page for electronic copies of public records. Photocopies of records would increase from 25 cents per page to 50 cents a page.
Councilmember Walter Pilié said in the meeting that he was taken aback when he read the ordinance.
“Basically, this has a chilling effect on getting public records from the parish,” he said.
Pilié said in the meeting that, before he was elected to the council, he filed several public record requests. He estimated that under the new, proposed fee schedule one of those requests would have cost about $800 because it was 1,599 pages.
“I have an opinion that when people are going to go look for documents and they get the price they would shy away from it,” he said.
Councilmember Michelle O’Daniels also voiced concern for the public’s right to access public records.
“My concern lies mostly with the charge of 50 cents a page for electronic records, which I really cannot support at this time,” she said in the meeting. “I think there has got to be a better way to level this out between the cost incurred by the parish as well as the public interest.”
O’Daniel said the ordinance could be discussed further in a legislative committee meeting open to the public.
In defense of the ordinance, Jewell argued that fulfilling public records requests often involves numerous employees working to redact and process records. He said sometimes these requests take weeks, or even months, to fill.
“I think the public should have access to these documents, but at the end of the day this is a very small number of people generating an inordinate amount of work for the parish,” he said. “And all [the ordinance] is seeking to do is to recoup some of that money.”
Jewell also noted that when employees spend time on public records requests, they are not spending time on projects important to the parish. Companies, banks, law firms and news organizations – not just parish residents – file public record requests, Jewell said.
“I’ve got a long history with public record requests,” he said at the meeting. “When I worked at the department of energy one of my jobs was to review public record requests that were sent in from all across the country. One of the things that was abundantly clear then and it is now, working in St. Charles Parish government because we see it every day, is that these public records requests have a cost to the parish.”
During the council discussion, Jewel said that he feels the ordinance is not out of step with similar ordinances in other parishes and in St. Charles Parish: the sheriff’s office charges $1 per page for copies. The school system charges 25 cents for electronic or paper copies of public records. This month, West Baton Rouge Parish Council voted unanimously to charge a fee of $1 per page for the first 25 pages of a public records request and 50 cents for pages 26-500.
“When you have people who are requesting every document – and it’s thousands and thousands of pages – that we have to go through and redact and process, I think it’s fair that there be some sort of cost incurred and that the public isn’t subsidizing the work of our employees to fulfill a small number of requests that generate a very large amount of work,” Jewell said during council discussion.
The custodian of public records in St. Charles Parish is the parish council secretary. The secretary can deny a records request that would “substantially disrupt required government operations,” but only after making reasonable attempts to narrow the request.
The Louisiana Public Records Law grants any person the right to examine and obtain copies of public documents held by the state and government agencies. There is no cost to examine a public record, but parish governments can charge a reasonable fee for copies. The law also does not allow agencies to charge for the time spent reviewing or examining records to determine if they are subject to disclosure.
The intent of public records laws is to ensure transparency and accountability in government. It allows the public to monitor government agencies.
Last year, the Louisiana Illuminator argued in a lawsuit that Lake Charles’ fee of 50 cents for electronic copies of public records was unreasonable and violated state law. The news organization argued the only fee for electronic records should be a CD, stick drive or storage device, which costs between $2 and $10.
The Illuminator dropped its lawsuit after it received the public records it requested. Lake Charles no longer charges a fee for electronic documents. Its prices for digital records are $35 for a DVD and $25 for a jump drive, according to the Illuminator.
