August 10, 1998; Minnesota Department of Public Safety
8/10/1998 10:14:43 AM
This is an opinion of the Commissioner of Administration issued pursuant to section 13.072 of Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13 - the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. It is based on the facts and information available to the Commissioner as described below.
Facts and Procedural History:For purposes of simplification, the information presented by the person who requested this opinion and the response from the government entity with which the person disagrees are presented in summary form. Copies of the complete submissions are on file at the offices of PIPA and, except for any data classified as not public, are available for public access. On July 6, 1998, IPA received a letter dated June 30, 1998, from Gary Hill of KSTP-TV. In his letter, Mr. Hill requested that the Commissioner issue an opinion regarding the appropriateness of the Department of Public Safety's charge for copies of certain government data. IPA, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to Donald Davis, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, in response to Mr. Hill's request. The purposes of this letter, dated July 10, 1998, were to inform him of Mr. Hill's request and to ask him to provide information or support for the Department's position. On July 20, 1998, IPA received a response, dated July 17, 1998, from Mr. Davis. A summary of the facts is as follows. Mr. Hill sent IPA a copy of the data request form a KSTP staffer filled out on April 27, 1998. The form is entitled DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY MINNESOTA STATE PATROL INFORMATION DISCLOSURE REQUEST. The requested data are apparently classified as public. The copy charge rate is listed on the request form as $1.50 per page. The information request form indicates that 14 pages were to be copied, and that the total charge was $21. Mr. Hill's question to the Commissioner is whether the $1.50 per page fee is allowable under Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13. Issue:In his request for an opinion, Mr. Hill asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:Minnesota Statutes Section 13.03, subdivision 3, and Minnesota Rules Section 1205.0300, subpart 4, provide that government entities may recover some of the costs associated with providing copies of public government data. However, these limitations for cost recovery do not apply to situations in which the data have to be created. In his comments regarding the opinion request, Commissioner Davis stated that the copy charges for KSTP-TV's request totaled $136.50. He added, however, that the Department made an error and that the charge should have been $226.62. Commissioner Davis provided a copy of a memo written by Captain Brian Erickson (Budget, Planning and Research staff) that explains the copying charge. In his memo, Captain Erickson wrote: An employee of KSTP-TV made a request of the DPS-State Patrol to view copies of school bus accident incident reports and subsequently, requested copies of some of those reports. At the time of the request, the KSTP-TV employee was quoted a per copy rate of $1.50. A total of 91 copies were provided and payment was collected in the amount of $136.50. The $1.50 per copy rate was collected in error, however. These type [sic] of information requests occur infrequently at this location and our employee used an outdated Information Request Form which listed the incorrect method of calculating cost for copies. The method for calculating cost had been revised to more accurately recover the cost of providing information. The current method requires each information request to be calculated based on actual time, to collect, assemble, copy, and certify the information, multiplied times the wage rate of the individual performing the work plus $0.03 per copy made.... The State Patrol does not maintain school bus incident records and these records needed to be created for this request. In this particular instance, 1,439 records were copied, redacted, then copied again to create the incident records to be reviewed. A total of five hours were spent copying the records. The time spent redacting the accident reports to eliminate the private data, approximately eight hours, was not included. The cost of applicable employee time is $137.55. Cost for 2,969 copies made is $89.07. The total cost for this information request should have been $226.62. [Emphasis added.] Some additional information may be helpful. Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Section 169.09, drivers involved in certain serious traffic accidents, and law enforcement officers investigating said accidents, must file a specific report with the Commissioner of Public Safety. The Commissioner of Public Safety maintains copies of these reports; although most of the data in the reports are either private or confidential, some of the data are public (see Sections 13.82, subdivisions 3 and 4; and 169.09, subdivision 13 (d)). Furthermore, Minnesota Statutes Section 169.452 (b) requires Public Safety to collect certain data regarding school bus accidents. The Commissioner's (of Administration) interpretation of Captain Erickson's memo is that the State Patrol Division of Public Safety does not maintain copies of the bus accident reports. Therefore, the data KSTP-TV requested had to be created. As the Commissioner has stated in previous advisory opinions, Chapter 13 does not require government entities to create data to conform to a request. It is the responsibility of both the data requestor and the government entity to arrive at a mutually agreeable solution, e.g., appropriate charge, for the entity to create the data as requested. Opinion:Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue raised by Mr. Hill is as follows:
Signed:
Elaine S. Hansen
Dated: August 10, 1998 |
Copy costs
Existence of data
Cost of creating new data
