Should the Public Pay for Open Records Requests?

March 11th-17th is Sunshine Week, America's annual celebration of government transparency, marked by hundreds of speeches, workshops, proclamations, performances, news stories and press releases nationwide. In the spirit of Sunshine Week, we wanted to look at some of the some of the activity happening in states across the U.S. Today, let's look at Michigan.

When VICE News requested records from the Detroit Police Department, the Police Department told the news organization it would take 3,120 business days and cost $77,532 to retrieve police shooting records. Many organizations highlight this as an example of government secrecy. It may or may not be. VICE's experience with the Michigan Policy Department perfectly depicts the tension between the public policy which favors the need for open records and meetings and the strain on government budgets in achieving that policy goal.

The Michigan Freedom of Information Act allows Michigan to charge for reproduction fees and labor fees. Michigan can charge requestors "that portion of labor costs directly associated with the necessary searching for, locating, and examining of public records in conjunction with receiving and fulfilling a granted written request." The Police Department and other agencies may charge, but what they can charge is laid out in the statute. Regardless of whether the Department wanted to respond, it's likely that the Detroit Police station just doesn't have the budget to hire the number of people needed to manage the request.

Unfortunately, public access to meetings and records are a problem across the country. Experts say that public access to records is worse now than it was four years ago. Today, public officials are more likely to deny record requests, according to nearly half of the media experts surveyed in the "Forecasting Freedom of Information," study. In the same study, more than one-third of survey respondents (38%) said they were denied records more frequently at all levels of government in the last four years. In addition, claimants filed lawsuits in every state in the country claiming that public officials did not produce public records within the statutorily required time period - or that they did not produce records at all.

The purpose of the Michigan Freedom of Information Act is to protect democracy by ensuring an open government. The reality is that most government agencies want to comply with open records requests, but they struggle for the budget to hire employees to respond to requests, gather documents, make copies, and redact requested documents.
Tomorrow we visit Ohio.