$10 Per Email: State Upholds Baltimore County Public Schools’ Fee Request for Audit Emails

The state’s Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) Compliance Board upheld Baltimore County Public Schools’ request for fees on Monday, in which an attorney for the school board asked The Baltimore Post for $1,210.33 in exchange for 122 emails concerning a procurement audit completed earlier this spring.

At nearly $10 per email – to search for, review and redact each one – the compliance board ruled that the fees were reasonable, but said that they were subject to revision if the time to redact them resulted in less time than originally quoted.

“As for counsel’s estimated review time… we have no reason to believe it is inflated.  Of course, counsel should only charge for the actual amount of time he spends on review,” the report stated.

Government agencies are permitted to charge reasonable fees to search for, review, redact and print public information, which itself is free. But sometimes steep MPIA fees block the release of information, intended for the public.  The per-hour rate also depends on who is handling the request which is decided by an agency’s public information custodian. 

Following the results of a procurement audit of the school system in April, The Baltimore Post requested emails between members of the school board and audit firm, UHY Advisors.

After several long delays, in June, school board attorney, Andrew Nussbaum, at first requested The Baltimore Post pay $2,225 in order for him to review and redact “hundreds of emails.”

In response, The Baltimore Post filed for a review by the compliance board which reviews cases when more than $350 is requested for public documents.

What Nussbaum initially reported as being “hundreds of emails,” subsequently became “3,000 emails” and finally resulted in “122 emails,” after the law office modified its search criteria in response to The Baltimore Post’s complaint filed with the compliance board...

https://thebaltimorepost.com/10-per-email-state-upholds-baltimore-county-public-schools-fee-request-for-audit-emails/