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Panel hears bill limiting public-record charges to actual costs and requiring interactive communication on large requests
Summary
A Judiciary Committee hearing reviewed House Bill 2134, which would limit public-record charges to the actual costs of furnishing records, require use of the lowest-cost category of staff for time charges, exclude employee benefits from time calculations and require interactive communication when requests exceed certain thresholds.
A Kansas Judiciary Committee hearing reviewed House Bill 2134, as amended in the House, which would tighten and clarify charges public agencies may impose under the Kansas Open Records Act for furnishing copies of public records.
The reviser’s bill brief summarized the bill’s core changes to K.S.A. 45-219. Under the amended proposal, an agency’s “actual cost” of furnishing records may include review and redaction but may not include incidental costs not attributable to producing the requested records. If staff time is charged, the agency must use in good faith the lowest-cost category of staff reasonably necessary to provide access; charges for staff time must be computed from the employee’s salary or hourly wage and must not include employee benefits.
The bill would require agencies to make reasonable efforts to contact a requester when the staff time to respond is estimated to exceed five hours or the estimated cost exceeds $200; if the requester does not respond within three business days after the agency’s reasonable efforts to contact, the request would be deemed withdrawn until the requester recontacts the agency. The bill’s House amendment removed a per-page 25¢ copy fee that had appeared in earlier drafts.
Supporters described the bill as a compromise between public-interest groups and local governments designed to prevent “double charging” for electronic records and to limit per-page surcharges. Dave Trabert of the Kansas Policy Institute said the amended bill “does allow local units of government to charge printing costs, but no more than the actual printing costs,” and described the measure as resolving concerns about entities charging per-page fees in excess of actual cost. John Goodyear, general counsel for the League of Kansas Municipalities, described the language as the product of multi-party negotiations and said the house amendments addressed many municipal concerns.
The Office of the Attorney General reviewed the bill and expressed support for the compromise, asking only that particular exceptions included in Senate Bill 70 (relating to specified closed investigations and certain program records) be preserved if the bills are combined. Matthew Biengesser, administrative counsel at the attorney general’s office, said the office appreciated the compromise and requested re-addition of two SB 70 components regarding certain closed administrative investigations.
Senators asked whether HB 2134 and Senate Bill 70 could conflict if both advance; the reviser recommended harmonizing the two measures to produce a single clean statutory package. Committee members also asked technical questions about the practical effects of charging by employee salary and how electronic delivery is treated; witnesses said agencies should use the lowest-cost employee who can perform the task efficiently and that electronic attachments generally have no marginal copying cost.
The committee did not take final action on the bill at the hearing. Supporters urged the committee to incorporate language from related measures where appropriate and to move a harmonized package forward during the session.
