From the Fayetteville Observer (3/27/10): The Fayetteville Observer's recent Sunshine Week audit revealed some inconsistency in what local governments charge for copies of public records.
In Moore County, for instance, the Health Department charged an Observer reporter, acting as a curious citizen, a dime a page for a restaurant inspection report. The Board of Education wanted a quarter for a copy of a football coach’s salary sheet. Southern Pines police handed over a three-page crime report for free.
So what should the public expect when visiting city hall or a police department for a little insight into their government?
State law generally doesn’t prescribe a set fee for copies of public records. While encouraging free copies whenever possible, the statutes use a fluid term, “actual cost,” to describe what should be charged for reproducing records.
In order words, if Staples is charging a city a penny for a sheet of copy paper and a smidgen of printer toner, and a government employee earning $50,000 a year with benefits spends a minute or so at the file cabinet and the photocopier, then a dime a page sounds about right for the “actual cost” of reproducing something from a city council’s meeting minutes book.
To hear how things look from the other side of the counter, we called Dee Hammond.
The Laurinburg city clerk is president this year of the North Carolina Association of Municipal Clerks.
Hammond said the association holds regular seminars on public records for clerks. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Government and the North Carolina Office of Archives & History provide guidance on the proper handling and preservation of public records, she said.
How does Hammond deal with records requests and copying charges?
“Typically, depending on the time of day, the length of the document, if we can’t get it to that person when they come in at that particular time, we try to have it for them by at least the next day,” said Hammond. “Mostly everything we do, you know, is open to the public.”
Hammond said she usually reproduces a few pages of public documents at no charge. For larger bundles of paper, she charges a dime a page.
Laurinburg City Hall isn’t overrun with records requests, she said. A political candidate may drop by and look over old meeting records to bone up for an election campaign debate.
But those visits aren’t so necessary anymore, since the city posts meeting agendas and minutes on the Web. (The online agendas appeared up-to-date Friday, but no minutes have been posted for 2010.)
In Greensboro, City Manager Rashad Young has taken government transparency in the digital age to a new level.
Young has created a special account into which the City Council may dump personal e-mails and text messages that bear on public business. Such communications are public records under state law.
Political mischief often is the mother of government reform, and that appears the case in Greensboro. According to a blog called TriadWatch, Young was prompted by some council members text-messaging at meetings to find out which way their political patrons wanted them to vote on matters under discussion.
by Francis X. Gilpin, Fayetteville Observer Staff Writer