The cost of transparency: $223 per hour?
Posted by Jonathan Bechtle - October 05, 2007Recently I had occasion to request a copy of Pierce County’s voter roll on CD. Having obtained many copies of the state voter roll and other counties’ rolls, I expected a charge of $30 (the cost of the state roll) or less. Instead, I got a bill for $75.
Now, I do understand that providing public records costs time and resources, and I have no problem with the statute allowing government to recoup actual costs.
But Pierce’s charge seemed unusually high, more than twice what the state charges for a much larger database file. So I asked the Auditor to provide documentation showing how that cost was calculated. Most of the 119 documents I received in response were irrelevant, but a few were responsive and included the following explanation:
Each [CD] request requires approximately 10 minutes of an operator’s time to setup the requested job, depending upon the size of the job it can require 20 minutes to 2 hours of computer time to produce the data, and another 10 minutes to burn the data to CD.The cost of an expensive CD-R is about $.80. No modern computer should take even 20 minutes to produce a county-wide voter extract (a simple database query), and there would be no direct costs for the minimal computer time. So according to the Auditor’s explanation, I’m paying for the CD and the 20 minutes of operator time, who is apparently making $222.60 per hour. Something seems fishy.
Besides the fact Pierce appears to be charging more than the actual costs of producing the CD (probably more like $15), most citizens aren't going to be able to pay $75 for one record very often. Public records must be readily available to the public, which is why the Public Records Act restricts the price of documents to the actual cost. Pierce County should review its pricing schedule to ensure it follows the law.
Thoughts? Add Comment -
Stefan Sharkansky said on Oct 05 2007 at 4:57pm
King County now charges about $2.00 - $3.00 per CD of voter data.
Meagan said on Oct 05 2007 at 5:10pm
Excellent! I want to request tax records from Tacoma (Pierce County Assessor); but they claim it costs between $60-$200.
Why am I paying for the machine to work? Is the worker watching the machine?
cmiklich said on Oct 05 2007 at 5:15pm
Never forget: It was the Pierce County Auditor at that time (previously convicted of lying under oath) who deliberately would not release vote data during the extremely close Senate race in 2000.
At literally the last minute, Cantwell was put over the top because of Pierce County's vote. Every other County announced how many votes remained to be counted during the process, except Pierce.
Piersall-Stipek was convicted of lying under oath in a related matter. Previous to her, other County Auditors in Pierce County have gone to PRISON for their behavior while Auditor. Must be something in the water in Tacoma, because the history of criminal conduct at every level is staggering...
Mark said on Oct 05 2007 at 11:53pm
Maybe Richard Pope should move there.
Michael H said on Oct 06 2007 at 3:11pm
This is something the State Auditor can look at since it is financially related. I would suggest calling their hotline about this and have them check Pierce County's compliance with the Public Records act.
Jonathan Bechtle said on Oct 08 2007 at 4:19pm
Michael H: Thanks for the suggestion. I'll certainly do that.
Maverick said on Oct 18 2007 at 11:11am
Nice posting! It was featured in this week's edition of the Carnival of Open Records.
Regards, Maverick