CIRA de CASTILLO TGI Staff Writer LIHU’E — A bill heard before the Senate Judiciary (JUD) committee yesterday would require the counties to reduce the amount they charge taxpayers for photo copies of public records. The bill (SB 2523) would
CIRA de CASTILLO TGI Staff Writer
LIHU’E — A bill heard before the Senate Judiciary (JUD) committee yesterday
would require the counties to reduce the amount they charge taxpayers for photo
copies of public records.
The bill (SB 2523) would reduce by half the
amount Kaua’i County agencies can charge for copies of public records and will
ensure that photo copy fees are not arbitrary, unfair or unnecessarily
high.
The bill also clarifies that county law cannot preempt state law
when assessing copy fees. The JUD committee is expected to vote on the bill
this Friday.
Currently, Kaua’i residents pay 50 cents for a single photo
copy of a public document from any county agency.
A simple, informal,
experiment has been conducted by the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) to
illustrate the relative cost of copies.
Assuming that the copies were
produced by a government employee earning $20,000 annually, the relative cost
including paper and equipment would be 4.3 cents per copy.
If the employee
earned $40,000 a year, the cost would be 4.7 cents a page.
And if the
copies had been produced by Gov. Ben Cayetano, who is paid $94,000 a year, the
cost would be 5.7 cents per copy.
The above reference can be found in a
report, The Price of Access, by Ken Takayama, Legislative Reference Bureau
(LRB) Asst. Director of Research.
So how is it that Kaua’i residents pay
50 cents a copy?
According to Amy Esaki, deputy county attorney, Kaua’i
county agencies are permitted by ordinance to charge 50 cents per photocopy
even though, as of July 1999, state law permits counties to charge as little
as 5 cents and directs state agencies to do the same.
The Kaua’i fee of
50 cents for the first 10 copies and 10 cents for each subsequent copy can be
changed by the County Council, said Esaki.
The Office of Information
Practices (OIP), the state agency that addresses public access to information,
supports charging a minimal fee for photocopies because the agency has found
that government and the public’s access to government records are enhanced by
lower photocopy costs, said Carlotta Dias, OIP staff attorney.
In
Takayama’s report to the Legislature he said the LRB not only supports lower
access fees but urges governmental agencies to encourage and support efforts to
improve public access.
Big Island citizens pay $1 per copy; Honolulu
charges 50 cents, and Maui, 25 cents per photocopy.
