In Wyoming, if someone has a question about where their tax money is being spent or how much is spent on their county libraries, they can ask to look at the public documents containing that information.
However, there are people who think local governments should be able to charge their constituents a fee simply because they want to look at a list of employee salaries or a yearly budget. We think they’re wrong.
A proposed rule change in Wyoming would allow local governments to charge “reasonable costs” for producing and building a copy of an electronic record for inspection. The cost can include staff time including the time spent reviewing, redacting and copying the record. A fee could also be assessed to supervise copying of public records, which could be as much as $40 an hour. While a $180 threshold would be applied before charging someone for the time involved in finding or creating a document, that amount could easily be reached if multiple employees are involved.
Public documents are owned by the public and generated by the governments whose duty is to serve the public. While government employees have routinely charged when asked to make copies of a document, seeking money from someone who simply wants to look at a document goes against the ideas of transparency and open government.
We think a fee simply to look at a document will have a chilling effect on a person’s curiosity regarding their local governments.
We’re not arguing that local governments are actively seeking the rule change to discourage people from seeking information about public business, but a charge will do that nonetheless. What this charge does accomplish is communicating that an employee’s time is so valuable, the time spent helping someone look at a public document is a waste of their resources and should be compensated for.
A common argument for these kinds of charges is to cover the costs of the employee’s time in searching for and retrieving records. These employees often have the words “work with the public” included in their job descriptions and as such, isn’t out of bounds as far as what that employee is required to do.
We believe the rules in place now work to the benefit of curious residents and maintain a transparent government. A charge to cover someone’s time would only chill any questions a person has regarding how their government works.
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