July 28, 1999; Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
7/28/1999 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 IPA and, except for any data classified as not public, are available for public access. On April 16, 1999, IPA received a letter from Stephen J. Boe. In his letter, Mr. Boe asked the Commissioner to issue an opinion regarding his right to gain access to certain data maintained by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Mr. Boe enclosed copies of related correspondence. Mr. Boe's initial request required clarification and additional information regarding the issues that the Commissioner is able to address in this opinion, which involved subsequent correspondence and conversation with IPA staff. In response to Mr. Boe's request, IPA, on behalf of the Commissioner, wrote to Allen Garber, Commissioner of DNR. The purposes of this letter, dated June 3, 1999, were to inform him of Mr. Boe's request, and to ask him to provide information or support for DNR's position. On June 21, 1999, IPA received a response from Roger Holmes, Director of the Fish and Wildlife Division of DNR. A summary of the detailed facts of this matter follows. Beginning in October of 1998, Mr. Boe made several requests to various DNR staff for access to muskellunge data. Mr. Boe received access to some of the data. At issue here is the response DNR made to two specific requests made by Mr. Boe in letters dated October 29, 1998, and January 16, 1998. In the first letter, Mr. Boe requested access to the following data: Leech Lake creel information about the muskellunge fishery, from each year that summer creel surveys were conducted: total estimated catch; total estimated harvest; total estimated release; total estimated pounds harvested; and length frequencies of muskellunge caught/harvested/released. In addition, Mr. Boe requested any summaries of data for only anglers seeking muskellunge. DNR did not respond to Mr. Boe's request dated October 29, 1998. In a letter dated January 16, 1998, to DNR, Mr. Boe repeated his earlier request and also requested access to additional muskellunge data from three more lakes. DNR replied, in a letter dated January 25, 1999, that the information Mr. Boe requested in his January 16, 1999, letter will take a considerable amount of time to assemble and copy. DNR said Mr. Boe could expect a reply in six to eight weeks. In a letter dated February 3, 1999, DNR apologized for not having responded to Mr. Boe's October request, stating that the letter was probably lost when the DNR official to whom it was sent moved his office. DNR also stated that it appears that most if not all of the information you requested can be provided in the form of published survey reports, which constitute 420 pages of information. DNR said the cost of the copies, at $.20 per page, was $84.00. Mr. Boe replied to DNR in a letter dated February 20, 1999, in which he stated that he believed the information he requested was contained in a few pages of each report, and that it was not necessary for DNR to copy the entire reports. Mr. Boe, who resides in a distant state, wrote: [i]t may be more convenient to have someone come to your office with forms to record the data on. This should make for minimal effort (just providing the documents or data) on your part. If you agree, I will make arrangements for this. In a letter dated March 17, 1999, DNR replied to Mr. Boe's letter of February 20, and to two other requests made to DNR that are not at issue here. DNR reiterated the costs (at $.20 per page) of copying the complete reports that contain the data Mr. Boe requested. DNR also stated that some of the data were contained in electronic media, and that the cost to provide these data include the hourly wage of the staff person assigned to assemble the information plus fringe. DNR stated that to retrieve Leech and Cass Lake data from its creel survey database would take approximately two hours of staff time. In that same response, DNR stated: [i]f you do not wish to receive the entire report you may visit the regional office in Bemidji where this information can be made available to you for viewing. You can then identify the selected pages you wish to have copied, and we can copy the reduced amount of material for you at $.20 per page. In his opinion request, Mr. Boe questioned DNR's requirement that he pay for copies of entire reports, when the data he requested is contained in a few tables of each report. He also questioned DNR's estimation that it would take two hours of staff time to retrieve the data he requested from the creel database. Mr. Boe stated that as a former DNR employee, he had observed how quickly information could be queried for individual lakes. In his response to the Commissioner, Mr. Holmes stated that the various requests from Mr. Boe (only two of which are at issue here) varied from very specific to open-ended. Much of the information that Mr. Boe requested does not exist as stand-alone tables, figures, or computer files. Rather than expend significant staff time in attempting to selectively extract the information, we chose to offer Mr. Boe the option of viewing the documents and identifying selected pages from each report. Mr. Holmes also stated: [t]he creel survey data is stored in 10 separate files in the database. . . . Mr. Holmes further stated: It should be noted that the DNR has a long history of dealing with information requests from Mr. Boe and he has criticized our agency in the past for not providing all of the information he requested. For this reason, we felt it was better to provide him with full access to all of the information rather than interpret and unintentionally narrow his information requests. Further, it is our understanding of [the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act] that we are not required to organize or sort data according to the desires of a particular requestor, or to create data that does not already exist. Issue:In his request for an opinion, Mr. Boe asked the Commissioner to address the following issue:
Discussion:In his response to the Commissioner, Mr. Holmes stated that Mr. Boe's data requests were both very specific and open-ended, and DNR was therefore unwilling to interpret and unintentionally narrow Mr. Boe's requests. Some of the data to which Mr. Boe requested access from DNR are very specific muskellunge data from certain lakes. In his opinion request, Mr. Boe stated that the tables in the reports that contain the data are easily recognized from the tables of content in each report. Mr. Holmes is correct that DNR is not obligated under Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13, to organize or sort data, or to create data that do not exist. However, pursuant to section 13.03, subdivision 3, DNR is obligated to search for, and retrieve government data. If some of the data Mr. Boe requested is contained in statistical tables that can be identified from tables of contents of written reports, then DNR should search for and retrieve those tables of data, and not require Mr. Boe to pay for copies of the entire reports. However, pursuant to section 13.03, subdivision 3, DNR may require Mr. Boe to pay for its actual cost to search for, and retrieve the data. With respect to the data contained in the databases, Mr. Boe and DNR disagree as to the relative ease of retrieval. Mr. Holmes stated: Mr. Boe is correct in stating that certain queries can be performed rather quickly. This is the case when query criteria are clearly delineated. His request for data from the creel survey database lacked the type of specificity needed to conduct an expeditious query. We estimated that it would take two hours staff time to extract muskellunge data contained in each of the ten catch files from historical creel survey data collected on Cass and Leech lakes. If this cost is unacceptable to Mr. Boe, he still has the option of selecting pages for copying out of the respective completion reports. It is not clear to the Commissioner why Mr. Boe's request lacked the specificity to make an expeditious query of the creel database. If DNR was not clear about some aspect of Mr. Boe's request, it should clarify that with Mr. Boe. If the issue is that the database is not set up to handle Mr. Boe's request as easily as others, DNR should communicate that to Mr. Boe. Further, both DNR and Mr. Boe suggested that he, or his agent, inspect the data to determine which portions of the written reports satisfied his requests. An attempt should be made to make such arrangements. Clearly, it would be in the best interest of both parties for Mr. Boe or his agent to inspect the data and more clearly identify the specific data he wants copied. That is particularly the case in situations like this one, when the data requestor resides at some distance from the government entity that maintains the desired data. As the Commissioner has opined in previous opinions, it is incumbent upon the government entity to find a mutually agreeable resolution. (See Advisory Opinions 96-028, and 99-020.) Opinion:Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue raised by Mr. Boe is as follows:
Signed: David F. Fisher
Dated: July 28, 1999 |
Copy costs
Existence of data
Inspection
Requests for data
Response to data requests
New data or different format not required
Location of data
Entity responsibility
