House Bill 283, recently approved by the House State Government Committee, will now go the full Pennsylvania House of Representatives for consideration.
The bill will allow state and local agencies to charge additional search, review and duplication fees when responding to public record requests made for commercial purpose - businesses seeking information for the marketing of various products and services.
It is a sound proposal since taxpayers should not be paying for a commercial enterprises profits.
The fees must be approved by the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, must be reasonable and cannot be established with the intent of effecting or excluding individuals from access to public records.
The new, proposed fees do not affect print and broadcast journalists, and nonprofit organizations – who already pay a fee for information obtained under a Right-to-Know request.
According to a press release issued by the Bill's sponsor, Rep. Justin Simmons, "Local government offices with small staffs can be flooded by numerous public records requests from business … taxpayers who pay their salaries are shortchanged because the overwhelmed staff is handling these business requests."
While Simmons' legislation is worthy, there is no solid mechanism built into it to insure that news media and non-profits won't be billed the same as commercial enterprise requests.
News media, including the Town and Country, pay for information from their Right-to-Know requests. The number of request from local government agencies, for public information, continues to rise each year as elected officials become more wary of sharing any information because they're not sure if it's public information or not.
A simple addition to the Bill to have all government agencies publically list their prices for requests for information (per hour, per copy, etc.) would allow all involved to review the prices prior to making their request.
Public information is just that. Paying a cost to share that information with a public who should be aware of it, and have a right to be aware of it, is one thing. Paying an additional cost to profit from using that information is another.
Prices should be clearly stated – for each.