The town of Stanley has adopted a public records policy that charges a special service fee for access to public records that take time to produce. The new policy, which was approved at a City Council meeting on June 25, will charge an $18 an-hour service fee for any time expended on a public records request that takes more than four hours. In addition, the town will charge 10 cents per page for black and white copies, 50 cents per page for color copies, $3 per page for certified copies, and $7 for any records provided on a flash drive.
The special service charge will be in addition to the fees for copies. For fees $50 or more, the requester must submit 50% of the estimated fees before the request will be fulfilled.
Attorney Mike Tadych, who works with the North Carolina Press Association, said that more and more municipalities are implementing fees for public records, but the law is not settled on whether or not these fees are legal. "More and more public agencies are attempting to arbitrarily impose special service fees of this sort. We're pretty sure that they exchange notes and that's why they seem to be becoming more prevalent," Tadych said.
Tadych said that Governor Pat McCrory's administration attempted to implement a similar rule, and the North Carolina Press Association challenged the rule in court. "We fought the McCrory Administration on this issue, and the Cooper Administration came in and settled the case by agreeing that they wouldn't play this game," Tadych said.
In a written statement, Mayor Steven Denton said that this is the first time Stanley has adopted an official public records request policy. "This decision was driven by our limited staffing and the substantial time and resources required to fulfill these requests," he said. "The new policy was developed to align with the policies and best practices of many other municipalities, ensuring that we can continue to provide timely and efficient access to public records while maintaining the high standard of service our community deserves."
Denton said that the town of Stanley in past years has had no system that tracked the number of public records requests the town received, but he feels there has been an increase in the last year.
Stanley is not the only Charlotte-area municipality that charges for public records. Stanley's policy is similar to the town of Huntersville, which also instituted an $18 per hour fee for requests that take more than four hours.