State law allows us to charge fees to recover our actual costs for locating and providing public records. For photocopies that we make of letter-size or legal-size pages, including normal and reasonable staff time to locate, separate, photocopy, and return documents to files and to prepare copies for mailing, we charge:
- $0.25 per page (a double-sided copy is two pages)
Normal and reasonable staff time is 10 minutes or less per request.
We may charge additional amounts for staff time and other actual costs when responding to requests that require additional services or more than the normal and reasonable time for routine requests, including:
- Time we spend to locate, compile, and sort requested records, even if we find no records that respond to your request or the records we do find are exempt from disclosure
- Time we spend to review requested records and redact any exempt material
- Time we spend to copy requested records
- Time we spend returning documents to files
- Time we spend to supervise inspection by the requestor
- Necessary research time
- Time we spend preparing correspondence related to your request
- Special copy services and mailing services for documents that are not of standard size or for voluminous requests
State law permits us to charge for certifying that a copy of a document is a true copy. If you request a certified copy, we charge $5 per certificate in addition to the $0.25 per page. For more information, see CJO 13-065 and CJO 14-067.
We will give you an estimate of costs if they will likely be more than $25.00. We will not proceed further with the request until you confirm in writing that you want us to proceed and until you send payment in advance and the payment clears. We will refund any excess over actual costs. If we underestimated our costs, we will inform you as soon as possible so you can determine whether you want us to continue working to respond to your request.