Conundrum

Charging the public for copies of public records. Does it have to be that way?

A consultant to a municipality in Arizona telephoned the City of Orange, CA, (www.cityoforange.org) to request a copy of their master plan for parks, a 450 page document. She said she was on deadline for a report and needed it as soon as possible.

Orange's Records Manager, Erlinda Compton, first considered handling the request by hand, which would have entailed charging the consultant 10 cents per page for copying plus postage for the work.

Ms. Compton then came up with an Internet based solution that worked great and eliminated the need for charges to fulfill the request. Here's how:

Conventional Solution

"I don't like to ask the staff to handle a big copying job like that," Ms. Compton explains. "Everyone is busy. Doing that job means that another job has to be put off.

"Doing it conventionally, we would have to unbind the original document, photocopy each page, rebind it, count the number of pages, print up an invoice, bundle it and send it to the mail department for shipping. The job would take about an hour and a half. At 10 cents per page, the charge would have been about $45 plus postage.

"This would have been a fairly simple job to photocopy because the master plan for parks is readily available in hardcopy. If it had been an older, more obscure document, or not scanned into our imaging system, we could have been tied up for hours looking for it, and might never find it."

Like Orange, most municipalities charge 10 cents per page per government code for copies of ordinary records and more, of course, for official records such as birth, death and marriage certificates that require authentication.

Some municipalities give citizens access to copy machines so that they can make their own copies, usually for a very modest fee.

The process can be a little simpler when the records are on microfilm but you need a microfilm friendly copier and the know how to operate it.

21st Century Solution

The City of Orange, CA, has been scanning its records into a document imaging system since 1991, which enables them to find what they need simply by typing in a key word or phrase from their desktop computers. The City recently added the capacity to publish records instantly on the City's website (via Laserfiche WebLink.)

"We currently publish city records going back three years on our public website," Ms. Compton said. "The master plan for parks is older than that but, luckily, it had already been scanned in to our document imaging system.

"It took just a few seconds to put it on the website. I created a special folder and told the woman how to go into our site and get it. I told her the folder would be available for 10 days and then would be taken down.

"The woman called three days later to say that she had downloaded and printed the entire document herself. I then pulled the folder from the website.

"Thanks to the Internet, we were able to provide a large public document to a citizen without charge. We shifted the printing job to the recipient but that truly does seem to be a very fair way to do it."

This newsletter is an open space for you to share your experiences and knowledge. If you have a story about charging (or not having to charge) for copies of public records, or on another subject of concern to municipal officials, let us know. Similarly, if you'd like to suggest a document related conundrum for a future issue, please drop us an e mail at usernews@Laserfiche.com We look forward to hearing from you

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