(A) No fee will be charged for financial transactions meeting the policy.
(B) Charges for paper copies of non-routine public records shall be at a rate as set by the Council by resolution for material which can be found and copied in ten minutes or less. Material which takes more than ten minutes to locate and copy shall be charged at a rate as set by the Council by resolution.
(C) A City department, board, committee or agency may establish fees for specific records contained in their departments, such as maps, plats and the like. Such fee schedule shall be approved by the Mayor and posted in each department. For records not specific to a department, the departmental fee schedules should not conflict with the specific charges listed in this chapter.
(D) Copies of electronically stored records provided in electronic format will be charged as follows (see Title 2, Ch. 6, Part 10 Montana Code):
(1) The City’s actual cost per unit of the electronic media used to provide the public record. For security purposes, the City will provide all blank media;
(2) Expenses incurred by the City as a result of computer processing charges;
(3) Expenses incurred by the City for providing on-line computer access; and
(4) Out-of-pocket expenses directly associated with the request.
(E) Records provided to other governmental agencies may be provided on a “reciprocal” basis at the discretion of the Department Director responsible for the record. Records requested by sitting members of Council will be provided without charge when the requested record can be located and provided via electronic means and takes no more than a half-hour of staff time. If the records cannot be provided by electronic means or take more than a half-hour of staff time to locate and reproduce, the cost of such search and the reproduction of the records shall be referred to the Mayor to ensure the budget has not been exceeded before reproduction. The requestor will be contacted if the cost of locating and reproducing the record(s) exceeds $50 so the requestor may weigh whether to pursue the request. Requests by former members of Council are subject to the same costs as other requests by the public, even if the requestor was a sitting member of the Council at the time the event for which the records are being requested was occurring.
(F) Payment for charges must be received before delivery of the records to the requester. A Department Director may make accommodations for payment by entities frequently requesting records.
(G) The Mayor may waive fees when a requester has demonstrated payment of the fees required under this chapter will result in undue hardship.
(Res. 566, passed 3-3-2014)