As provided in current law, inspection, copying and translation into usable form may be scheduled to occur when the regular activities of the agency or official will not be delayed or inconvenienced.

Current law concerning translating records into a form usable by the requester is retained and clarified. The agency or official may require payment in advance of the costs of translation under certain circumstances.

This bill addresses the fees that may be charged for fulfilling a request for public records, including copying costs as well as fees for searching for and retrieving records. These provisions apply unless another law or court order applies to the fees that may be charged for that request. The law is clarified to provide that only a reasonable fee may be charged for copies of public records. The issue of whether to cap copying fees is added to the duties of the Committee to Study Compliance with Maine's Freedom of Access Laws, which this bill extends for an additional year.

New to the law are provisions governing the recoupment of costs of searching for, retrieving and compiling records to satisfy a request. After the first hour of staff time to search for, retrieve and compile records, the agency or official may charge up to $10 per hour for such staff services for each request. Compiling a public record includes reviewing the record and redacting confidential information.

An agency providing copies is not required to charge copying costs. An agency that does charge for copies may waive all or part of the regular charge if the requester is indigent or if release of the record is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester and the release is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of government. This waiver standard is modeled on the waiver standard that is part of the federal Freedom of Information Act.