Bill to charge for electronic public records passes House

by Rebecca White Staff Writer
| March 7, 2017 2:00 AM

OLYMPIA — A bipartisan bill which would give counties the authority to charge for electronic public records and deny mass public record requests passed the House with a 75 to 22 vote on Friday.

House Bill 1595, sponsored by Rep. Terry Nealey, R-Dayton, would allow government agencies to charge for providing copies of electronic records, set a fee schedule and allow a service charge for complex or time consuming record requests. The bill would also agencies to deny a request for all or almost all of an agencies records. Lastly, the bill would allow agencies to deny automatically generated, or robotic, record requests that interfere with the functions of a government agency.

“I think that’s a good system because it’s going to force that requester to narrow that request if they want to save money,” Nealey said. “You can push a button and ask for a million records and they pay nothing.”

Nealey said the Public Records Act was written in a time where the only records were print copies. Now, most records requested are electronic, which most counties do not charge for. The Washington State Auditor’s office published a public records survey of voluntary responses gathered from local governments and agencies across the state. The report showed nearly 40 percent of records are electronic, about 25 percent are paper records and fewer than 10 percent are in-person record inspections.

Nealey felt another reason this bill was necessary was litigation which resulted in counties failing to comply with the records request and fill them in a timely manner. The city of Othello reported spending $35,797 and Quincy reported $16,407 in litigation fees as a result of a record request. Statewide, respondents reported $10.2 million in litigation costs.

Nealey hopes the bill will move counties closer to breaking even by charging for electronic records. In the auditor’s report, the state reported spending more than $60 million on records requests and recovering $68,800 through fees, the majority of which came from charges for paper copies.

The new fee would be 10 cents per page scanned into an electronic format, 10 cents per minute of audio or video recording, 40 cents for every 25 electronic attachments uploaded to an electronic delivery system and 10 cents per gigabyte transmitting records electronically. An alternative written into the bill allows for agency may charge a flat fee of $5 for records.

During the public hearing stage of the bill and in earlier versions that were proposed to the legislature, critics were concerned the fee would limit access to media, concerned citizens and legal teams doing research.

“I think it’s going to improve transparency,” Nealey said. “There’s some perception, or some people think it’s going to be more difficult to get records now. I don’t buy that, I think it’s going to be easier. You’re going to get rid of the guys who shouldn’t be doing it or are doing it for the wrong reasons and now it’s going to cost them a little bit and that will help curb that.”

Rep. Melanie Stambaugh, R-Puyallup, voted against the bill when it came before the House. She said she supported several provisions in the bill, the ability to deny automated (or bot) requests and would support a study on a statewide electronic data sharing system. But the overall bill and fees for records she could not support.

“This bill could potentially increase the cost of accessing public records and that concerns me,” Stambaugh said. “There are some pieces that I think are beneficial … but in the entirety of the bill, we need to make sure the costs are not burdening the access to information.”

Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Ellensberg, Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, Rep. Mary Dye, R-Pomeroy, and Rep. Joe Schmick, R-Colfax, co-sponsored the bill.

Another bill, sponsored by Rep. Joan McBride, D- Kirkland, HB 1594 to designed to train administrators who handle public records requests and require them to contact and clarify requests also passed the house on Friday, with a 79 to 18 vote.

The bill will proceed to the Senate for further consideration.