Public Records Access and Fee Policies

January 14, 2000

Public Records Access

The Washington State Bar Association is committed to maintaining open and accessible records as described by Bylaw Article XIII, Records Disclosure and Preservation. In accordance with Article XIII, Section B, "the Bar, in accordance with published rules, shall make available for public inspection and copying all public records, unless the record falls within the specific exemptions of subsection 9 or Section C of this Article." The purpose of this policy is to state those published rules.

This policy does not imply that the Bar is required to prepare reports or compile data. If the Bar has certain reports, summaries, statistics, etc., those reports are records which are covered by this policy. If reports or compilations are requested that the Bar does not prepare in its normal course of doing business, the Bar will provide the raw data, if available, and the requestor may prepare reports, summaries, or statistics from that data. The Bar will generally make the data available in its existing format and media; if requested in another format or media, the Bar will only provide the data in the requested media if staff time is available and costs are recovered by the requestor.

To ensure the integrity of the Bar’s records, no original records will be allowed to leave the Bar office.

General Fee Statement for All Public Records

No fee will be charged for inspection of public records at the Bar’s office during normal business hours.

No fee will be charged for locating public documents and making them available at the Bar office for inspection, or for making them available for copying.

This policy does not cover the Bar’s commercial products, which will be sold at their stated prices.

In accordance with the Bylaws XIII B.1., "the Bar shall establish, maintain, and make available for public inspection and copying a statement of the actual per page cost or other costs, if any, that it charges for providing photocopies of public records and a statement of the factors and manner used to determine the actual per page cost or other costs, if any."

Statement of per-page copying cost and other costs and factors used to determine them: The per-page amount charged to requestors for photocopies of public records is $.15 per page. (Six pages or less will be copied as a courtesy at no charge.) Included in this price is the cost of any envelope needed. In addition, if the requestor asks for delivery other than coming to the Bar office to pick up the copies, the actual cost of postage or other delivery cost will be paid by the requestor.

The actual per-page cost includes the cost of paper, the cost of meter charges that the Bar pays the photocopier vendor, the original cost of the copy machine and subsequent machine maintenance, and the envelope. Since all these costs vary depending on which photocopy machine is used, and what the latest paper and envelope costs are, the Bar followed provision XIII B.1.b. in setting the amount at $.15 per page.

 

The Bar will make reasonable efforts to provide information electronically, if that is the preference of the requestor. However, if identifying and redacting exempt information from electronic records is more difficult and time consuming for Bar staff than doing so in printed form, the Bar is not obligated to provide the information in electronic form.

The Bar will most likely be able to provide public records in electronic form, such as reports or other information, if:

1. the Bar already has that information in that form, such as reports, and

2. that information does not include any information that is exempt, as defined in XIII B. 6, and

3. Bar staff can readily and easily determine that the information would not include any information that is exempt.

Electronic mail (e-mail) correspondence is subject to the WSBA’s public records Bylaws and governed by the same policies.

WSBA list serves are established as a public discussion forum.

• List-serve correspondence can be viewed by participating as a member of the list serve. There is no cost to do so.

• Historic electronic list-serve correspondence can be reviewed on a computer at the Bar office. If selected portions are requested to be printed, the cost to the requestor will be $.15 per page. Alternatively, if a requestor has the same software that the Bar office uses, the Bar may send the files electronically at a cost of 3 cents per "page" (about 66 lines of information).

The cost for providing copies of historic records in electronic form will be the cost of the disk or electronic media used, the actual postage or delivery cost, 3 cents per "page" (about 66 lines of information), and the cost of the envelope, or a minimum fee of $10.

Generally Bar staff is not available to prepare reports or extracts from electronic databases in response to a request; however, should the Bar staff do so, the cost to the requestor will be the actual cost the Bar pays to contract a programmer to create the report, or, if done by Bar staff, the programming cost will be $135 per hour.

Requests for copies of audio or video recordings which are public records will be assessed at the Bar’s cost of having a copy made, plus postage or other delivery cost.

The fee for copies of recorded video conferences will be the cost of the disk and a per hour charge of $5 per hour (rounded down to the nearest hour) to reproduce it.

Requests for copies of non-public records (such as records which are exempt per the by-laws but permission has been given by the individual) are not covered by these Public Records Disclosure policies or the WSBA Bylaws. When such requests are granted by the WSBA, fees for reproducing these will be set by the Executive Director and be based on direct staff and material costs to prepare the information.

Adopted by the Board of Governors on January 14, 2000