I've had the pleasure of reviewing some of the state's responses to various open records requests relating to the GOED/EB-5/Northern Beef Packers scandal. In meta-details, I notice that the Governor's Office of Economic Development has been quoting a specific hourly fee for fulfilling open records requests: $46.02.
$46.02, for finding, copying, and mailing documents.
Secretaries, administrative assistants, and other paper-workers, have you ever made $46.02 an hour?
Well, now that the feds and the press have put the spotlight on the EB-5 visa program, it appears state officials looking to pocket some extra cash have turned to open records requests as their current cash cow.
Keep in mind that all of the state employees finding these public documents for us are already drawing a paycheck for their public service. The additional hourly service charge is pure gravy, a fee for service that deliberately stifles citizens' efforts to access records to which they are entitled.
Among the many possible pieces of reform legislation that the GOED/EB-5/NBP scandal suggests, permit me to propose House Bill 1001 (that spot in the hopper isn't taken yet!):
Section 1: SDCL 1-27-1.2 shall be amended to read as follows:
For all public records requests, the state may charge no more than $0.05 for every page, paper or electronic, produced and transmitted to the requesting party. The total fee charged for fulfillment of any one public records request may not exceed $100.
Yes, it takes work for public officials to find and send public documents. But that's their job. To pay state workers a bonus larger than any office worker in the state receives for comparable work is a rip-off.
CAH you find some very interesting things that I, for one, would never even know where to look .. Thank you
My guess is the state workers don't see a penny of the request money. It goes right in the general fund. The point of charging a lot for record requests is to discourage the average citizen from bothering them with requests. They did the same thing in Pennington County a couple of years ago because someone they didn't like kept requesting records.
I hope you don't go to district 26 and our sen. Lucas to put a bill like that in the hopper!!!!!! He wouldn't even know how to do it if he wanted to!!!!
SD is the land of veneer solutions to problems. There is much talk about open government, but any practical meaning in real world is destroyed by crap like a $42.00 charge for 5 cents of data cost. Open an environmental protection agency and then make sure it has no tools to measure or control any variety of pollution. The SD Legislature and Executive are experts at giving only the appearance of a working government.
Cory,
I haven't been asked or charged for any of my requests, whether GOED or elsewhere, on EB-5 or any other matter that I can recall, other than from the court systems (state and federal).
Bob! How do you rate? Does state government offer a journalists' discount?
It annoys me that when a person writes out to Pierre for a copy of birth certificate, etc., there is a $15.00 charge for that and they keep it even if they can't find it. I can kind of understand the charge if you want a certified copy. That being said I have spent a lot to get non-certified copies of birth, marriage, and death certificates of relatives that I want for my genealogy project. I would think there would be some way that relatives could print out these records themselves. I honestly don't know why anybody else would want copies of these records.
A $46 p/h charge should be called, "Close the Records Fee" because that is the intent. I like your idea, but a nickel a page is a little low considering the production costs. A dime or even a quarter a page with the $100 limit would be more receptive. Apparently from what Bob Mercer wrote there could be a media exception but in today's day-and-age the definition of 'media' is a moving target. More and more people are getting their "news" from non-traditional sources. Access to 'public' open records should not discriminate between "John or Jane Doe' and someone with a media pass.
"To pay state workers a bonus larger than any office worker in the state receives for comparable work is a rip-off." How did you manage to drudge up such a misleading statement absolutely barren of facts? On second thought, who cares what was running through your brain when you spat that drivel out. The fact is that South Dakota state employees do not receive "bonuses" for doing such work. My suggestion is to go back to the drawing board.
The $46.02 charge is absolute, documentable fact. Whether a manager can skim that money for a bonus or whether it goes back into the general fund as V.O. suggests above is less important than the main fact that such exorbitant fees deter public inquiry into public affairs. (The vitriol of the preceding comment distracts from the main argument, as some angry soul faced with unpleasant facts tries to divert the discussion into a personal insult fest. "Defender" of what? The status quo? Corruption? Deceit? Graft? Gouging the taxpayers?)
I'm bothered that this fee might be, as Mr. Mercer suggests, subjective. Do rules exist for the fee? Are records kept on requests granted or denied and fees paid or fees waived for documents? Who decides who is assessed the fee? What are the criteria for making this judgement? Are there favorite reporters that are exempt? Are bloggers who write favorable stories exempt? Can the fee be waived if a gratuity is paid to the appropriate official?
I'm in no way surprised that South Dakota has such an arbitrary system that is so easily subject to abuse and corruption.
Subjective? Indeed, Nick: the only rule I see governing the fee chargeable is the line in SDCL 1-27-1.2 that says "a reasonable fee may be charged for any specialized service." I guess looking for files and handing them to citizens is a "specialized service."
SDCL 1-27-40.2 does fix a specific dollar figure to the payment citizens receive if a court finds that a public agency improperly denied access to public documents: a maximum of $50 per day that the public entity delayed delivery of the documents. So one hour of a state official's time is worth almost the same as an entire day of the average citizen's time.
The qualifier "may" in SDCL 1-27-1.2 leaves the entire process open to corruption and favoritism. Replace the word "may" with "shall" and at least all requests will be treated equally and state government and governmental employees will be less subject to corruption and accusations of corruption real or imagined.
[Defender, check your e-mail before posting again.]
It's simple Cory, change your name to Mercer