| Is the Stearns County Auditor-Treasurer's Office in compliance with Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13, with respect to its charge of $1.00 per page for a one-page property tax statement? |
Discussion:
When an individual requests copies of data of which s/he is not the subject, the government entity may charge the actual costs of searching for and retrieving government data, including the cost of employee time, and for making...the copies...but may not charge for separating public from not public data. (See Minnesota Statutes, section 13.03, subdivision 3(c).)
In addition, Minnesota Rules, section 1205.0300, states, ...the responsible authority may charge a reasonable fee for providing copies of public data.
In his comments to the Commissioner, Mr. Miller wrote:
While at the Treasurer's Office, Mr. Aeikens was attended to by Mr. William Larson of the Auditor-Treasurer staff....He is therefore the lowest paid and least experienced possible attendant Mr. Aeikens could have encountered in making his request....Mr. Aeikens requested a copy of a property tax statement for a single residential parcel located in Stearns County....Mr. Larson further recalls that he was provided only with the property owner's name. In any event, in order to process Mr. Aeikens' request for a property tax statement, Mr. Larson would have needed to perform the following steps....
In his request for advisory opinion, Mr. Aeikens alleges that his tax statement request took the clerk about a minute to produce. ...Mr. Aeikens is mistaken....Mr. Larson, recalls that it took roughly three or four minutes to produce the requested tax statement....Even under the best of circumstances (e.g. knowing precisely what you are looking for, having a PID #, property address, property owner and legal description in hand, etc.) it is not possible to generate a paper property tax statement within a minute. Timed trials of randomly selected properties performed in the Treasurer's Office yielded an average retrieval time of 2 minutes, 58 seconds. The fastest retrieval time was 2 minutes, 11 seconds - more than double the time alleged by Mr. Aeikens....
It is important to note that Stearns County utilizes three different formats for property tax statements. These are (1) the official mailed tax statement, (2) an Adobe Acrobat version that is available through Stearns County's Internet website and (3) the copy produced at the counter, through the Acorde document imaging system, at the request of the public. In addition, the raw data contained in a property tax statement can be accessed through the AS 400 system. Moreover, property tax information is organized in AS 400 for efficient use by staff, but the AS 400 system cannot directly produce property tax statements. The AS 400 program is used in virtually every County in Minnesota and is the primary program used by Stearns County staff in administering the local property tax system.
Mr. Miller stated that the Auditor-Treasurer's Office outsources the printing and mailing of the official property tax statements.
Mr. Miller further wrote:
The Acorde imaging version is for in-house production of paper property tax statements at public request. The Acorde system does not produce an exact physical copy of the official, mailed statement. Nonetheless, the data contained in the Acorde version are identical to those contained in the official mailed copy. The Acorde imaged version is used exclusively for purposes of providing copies to the public upon request. The Acorde imaging system's overall use, in addition to property tax statements, is for imaging a variety of types of documents for a variety of County departments. However, in order to produce imaged property tax data, a separate Mylar must be produced annually. The Mylar produced for the web-based application is incompatible with the Acorde system. The Stearns County Auditor's Office has historically provided approximately 700 property tax statements annually at the front counter per public request. In 2003, the Auditor's Office supplied 747 property tax statements from the Acorde system at public request.
In explaining the $1 fee the County charged Mr. Aeikens, Mr. Miller provided the following information. Mr. Larson's hourly rate is $20.75. He spent three minutes searching for and retrieving the requested data; therefore, the labor portion of the fee is $1.04. Mr. Miller added that the County charges an additional per page fixed cost of $.03 per page. He also stated:
...In order to produce the imaged document, each year a Mylar must be created. The Mylar is created by AMI Imaging Systems, Inc. The 2004 cost incurred by Stearns County for this Mylar is $1,312.50. In 2003 the Treasurer's Office received 747 requests for property tax statements at its front counter. Therefore, the per page cost of the Mylar in 2003 is approximately $1.76....
Thus, according to Mr. Miller, although the County's actual cost for providing a copy of the property tax statement to Mr. Aeikens was $2.83 ($1.04 + $.03 + $1.76), the County charged him only $1.
The Commissioner has the following comments. Mr. Miller states that Mr. Larson is the lowest paid staff Mr. Aeikens could have encountered in making his request. The Commissioner assumes this to mean there is no lower-paid staff person in the Office possessing the expertise to search for and retrieve a property tax statement. Mr. Miller asserts it took the County three to four minutes to search for and retrieve the data, and that the labor portion of the charge (for three minutes) was $1.04. Thus, of the total fee the County charged, it appears the portion for searching for and retrieving the data is reasonable and allowable under Chapter 13.
Regarding the three cents per page for material costs, Mr. Miller wrote, This cost includes such things as paper, toner, ink, staples, electricity used to briefly run the copy machine, additional wear and tear on the machine, etc. The Commissioner notes that while government entities may charge for paper, copier ink, and staples, it is not appropriate to charge for electricity and machine wear and tear (see Advisory Opinions 94-059 and 01-066).
Regarding the $1.76 per page fee for Mylar creation, the Commissioner does not have enough information to determine whether it is appropriate for the Office to pass on to customers the annual Mylar cost.
Although the Commissioner has questions and concerns about the three cents per page material costs fee and the $1.76 per page Mylar recovery fee, those costs, in this case, appear to be extraneous. The cost for Mr. Larson to search for and retrieve the data exceeds the $1 charge assessed Mr. Aeikens by the Office. Therefore, the Commissioner is of the opinion that the Office's fee is allowable under Chapter 13.
Finally, the Commissioner acknowledges that it may be difficult, administratively, for some government entities to set a unique fee for each request of copies. However, the statute authorizes entities to charge only their actual and reasonable costs, which implies copy charges must, at least in part, be calculated on a case-by-case basis. The Commissioner intends to bring these issues to the Legislature's attention, as guidance would be helpful.
Opinion:
Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue that Mr. Aeikens raised is as follows:
| The Stearns County Auditor-Treasurer's Office is in compliance with Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13, with respect to its charge of $1.00 per page for a one-page property tax statement. |
Signed:
Brian J. Lamb
Commissioner
Dated: June 28, 2004
