What do other states do?

Public bodies cannot charge for the labor it takes to fill records requests

Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico [by practice, no statutory language], North Carolina [by practice, no statutory language], Ohio [by case law], Pennsylvania, West Virginia

Flat per-page fee in lieu of labor charges

Connecticut, Florida, New York

No labor charges except when it requires IT “expertise”

Washington

Hourly labor charges are capped

Colorado [$33.58], Georgia [lowest paid full-time employee capable of performing task], Maine [$15], Michigan [lowest paid employee rate, even if that person is not the one who performs the tasks for any given request], Missouri [“using employees . . that result in the lowest amount of charges”], North Dakota [$25], Rhode Island [$15], South Carolina [lowest paid employee], Tennessee [“lowest practicable hourly wage”]

Labor is charged only if the requester’s requests have totaled 5 hours in a calendar month

Alaska

No labor charges for time to review records for exemptions (also called “exclusion review” or “privilege review”)

Alaska, Massachusetts [except for records that are required by statute to be withheld], Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon [but allows labor charge for redaction], South Carolina [but allows labor charges for redaction], Utah

Exclusion review cannot be charged above a certain rate

Michigan [no more than 6 times the state minimum wage]

No labor charges to search or redact

New York [only to “prepare”], Wisconsin

Labor or per-page charges are waived for the first x-number of hours or pages

Colorado [1 hour], Georgia [.25 hour], Hawaii [first $30-$50], Idaho [2 hours or first 100 pages], Maine [1 hour], Maryland [2 hours], New York [2 hours], Rhode Island [1 hour], South Dakota [1 hour], Tennessee [1 hour], Texas [50 pages]

An entity or statute creates a fee schedule(s) for state and local public bodies

Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington

Written policy, schedule or ordinance must be adopted in order to charge labor fees

Delaware, New Jersey [only for “extraordinary expenditures” of time/effort], Oklahoma, South Carolina

Statutorily imposed fees for specific types of records

California

Per-page maximum charge

New York [$.25], North Dakota [$.25]

Per-page minimum charge

Hawaii [$.05]

Allows fee for electronically provided records

Illinois [but still no labor]

Fee waivers for specific purpose

Louisiana [indigent requester], Oklahoma [media requester]

Multiple requests from any one person/entity during a 30 day period shall be considered one request

Rhode Island

No apparent limit beyond actual cost and reasonableness of fees, and no statute, third party, ordinance or policy setting fees

Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Virginia

Unclear

Nevada, Wyoming