Published: March 16, 2008 12:35 am            

Can’t charge that

THE ISSUE:Readmitting language that prohibits local governments from charging labor and overhead in copying fees.

OUR VIEW:If not limited to actual cost, government agencies would price public information out of reach.



With the constant and necessary focus on property tax reform during the recent session of the Indiana General Assembly, it’s understandable that lawmakers passed important legislation with little fanfare.

House Enrolled Act 1275 is one such measure.

Rep. Steve Stemler, D-Jeffersonville, apparently was a bit perturbed that the city of Clarksville continued to charge 8 cents in labor as part of its copying fees. He should’ve been. In the previous legislative session, language prohibiting local governments to include labor and overhead in copying fees was inadvertently removed from Indiana Code.

Thanks to Stemler, co-author Rep. Sheila Klinker, D-Lafayette, and sponsors Sens. Connie Sipes, D-New Albany, Connie Lawson, R-Danville, and Brent Steele, R-Bedford, that language was readmitted to the Indiana Access to Public Records Act – by a 95-0 vote in the House and a 46-0 vote in the Senate.

If copying fees aren’t limited to the actual cost, government agencies would price public information out of reach. It wasn’t that long ago that former Mayor Matt McKillip’s administration attempted to do just that.

In 2006, a representative of Kokomo’s Fraternal Order of Police was charged $148 for city budget information.

In 1984, the Kokomo Common Council delegated the responsibility for setting copying fees to the Board of Public Works and Safety. It set the fee at 20 cents a page. In November 2004, the McKillip-appointed board of works increased that fee to $1 a page.

We obtained an informal opinion from the state’s then-Public Access Counselor Karen Davis, who said the $1 a page fee far exceeded what could be considered a reasonable copying fee under state law.

In fact, she said even 25 cents a page was too much, in her opinion. But the access counselor’s opinions are nonbinding, and the board of works didn’t change its $1-a-page fee.

“State law doesn’t say we can’t charge $1 a page,” McKillip said two years ago.

No, it doesn’t. But now it says governments can’t include labor and overhead in copying fees.

Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for either – particularly when those same taxpayers already are paying their government for such items.

        

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