Saturday, July 10, 2010

Alawsuit against the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office by a consumer activist in Polk County over public records fees reveals a practice used by too many agencies and local governments to discourage access to records deemed "public" by state law.

We do not believe obstruction was the motive of the county Medical Examiner's Office when it set a $16 administrative fee -- in additional to the 15 cents per page allowed by state law -- for autopsy reports. We suspect that situation had more to do with budget concerns -- but in our view, the fee is nonetheless inappropriate and illegal. State law allows an administrative fee when "extensive" use of resources is required to retrieve records, but that hardly applies when the process takes less than 15 minutes.

Assistant Monroe County Attorney Bob Shillinger acknowledged as much, and said the medical examiner's fee schedule would be revised. We should note here that Shillinger has interceded on this newspaper's behalf on more than one occasion to ensure that county departments and agencies complied with state open records law.

Unfortunately, not all agencies have the same commitment to transparency.

For instance, when The Citizen last year requested copies of e-mails sent and received by members of the School Board, the district offered to comply for a $37.50 per week administration fee ( for "collection, processing and ... production of a CD") and a $125-per-hour charge for board attorneys to "review" the e-mails for "possible legal questions."

Clearly, the district's price tag for access to public records was designed as -- and remains -- an obstacle to open government.

In contrast, the city of Key West provides a weekly CD of e-mails to and from city commissioners and the city manager -- at no cost.

Unfortunately, we continue to see agencies use the administrative fee to discourage records requests. And while these agencies make access expensive, others make it as inconvenient as possible. Some local and state agencies have insisted that records requests are made in person and/or in writing. Neither is required by law -- a person requesting a public record is not required to identify themselves or to put the request in writing.

The irony of these tactics lies in the fact that in this age of digitized documents, the effort required by agencies to retrieve public records has been greatly diminished. In most of the cases, retrieval can be done in seconds from a keyboard rather than hours rummaging through file boxes in a storeroom.

To their credit, many agencies are using technology to increase transparency, with online access to documents significantly reducing the need to request copies. Some local governments go so far as to give the public online access to the e-mails of nearly everyone on their e-mail systems -- legal departments are invariably exempt. Monroe County posts background material for meeting agendas, televises its major meetings, maintains archives of meeting agendas, minutes and background documents -- including an online video archive of County Commission meetings.

Local constitutional offices such as the tax collector, property appraiser and clerk of the courts also provide online access to a phenomenal number of records at no cost.

Sadly, other agencies offer little more online than self-promoting press releases.

The bottom line is that transparency is not a significant burden for agencies and local governments unless they choose to make it so for the purpose of keeping their actions in the shadows. Those public employees who view the public as meddlesome should remember that taxpayers already have paid for the creation and storage of public documents -- not to mention the salaries of those who are required by law to make them public.

-- The Citizen