STATE OF MICHIGAN
DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY AND VETERANS AFFAIRS

PROCEDURES AND GUIDELINES FOR CALCULATING
THE COST OF FEES INCURRED IN PROCESSING
FOIA REQUESTS.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) permits a public body to charge a fee for the necessary coping of a public record for inspection, or for providing a copy of a public record. A fee may also be charged for search, examination and review and the deletion and separation of exempt from nonexempt information if the failure to charge a fee would result in an unreasonably high cost to the agency. The fee must be limited to actual mailing costs, and to the actual incremental cost of duplication or publication including labor, the cost of research, examination, review and the deletion and separation of exempt from nonexempt information. In calculating the cost of labor, a public body may not charge more than the hourly wage of the lowest paid employee capable of retrieving the information necessary to comply with a request.

Pursuant to the FOIA, § 4(3), the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs has established the following guidelines for calculating labor costs incurred in processing FOIA requests for Fiscal Year 2000/2001:

• The department will utilize the most economical means available for making copies of public records.
  
•  Fees will be uniform and not dependent upon the identity of the requester.
  
• The department will not charge more than the hourly wage of the lowest paid employee capable of retrieving the information necessary to comply with a request.

a) Labor costs for duplication of records will be calculated using the hourly wage of the partment's  lowest paid, full-time, permanent clerical employee. A breakdown of the actual cost for dupliccation of records is attached.

b) Labor costs for a public record search will be calculated using the hourly wage of the department's lowest paid, full-time, permanent capable of performing the search.

c) Labor costs for retrieving computer records, if the retrieval requires specialized knowledge of a program or database will be based on the hourly wage of the lowest paid employee capable of retrieving the particular records.

d) Labor costs for examination, review and the separation of exempt and nonexempt material will be based on the hourly wage of the lowest paid employee capable of conducting the review and determining what material is available for examination and copying.

• A fee will not be charged for search, examination, review and the deletion and separation of exempt and nonexempt material unless failure to charge a fee would result in an unreasonably high cost to the agency because of the nature of the request. In general, a fee will be charged for processing a request that requires more than 2 hours of time for search, examination and review and the deletion and separation of exempt material.
  
• A fee will not be charged when the cost of processing a request is less than $10.00.

Standard Fees

• Duplicating - photocopying costs will be based on an average department-wide cost of $.0375 per page. This is mean $.0375 for each one-sided copy whether it relates to multiple copies of the same page or to each page of a multiple page document. This will be considered the standard charge even though the costs of individual duplicating operations may vary from one office to another.
  
• Mailing - postage, insurance and other charges related to the shipment of material will be determined on an actual cost basis.
  
• Labor - labor charges will be based on the hourly wage of the lowest paid employee capable of retrieving the information necessary to comply with the FOIA request. Labor charges reflect a department-wide average of 44% for fringes and benefits. The following is an example of how rates to be billed are computed:

Special Fees

• Special or unusual fees, applicable to a particular request must be identified separately. Examples include overtime and the departmental rate (including fringes) for staff to be present when a requestor opts to come on-site and inspect records.

When costs are expected to exceed $50.00, a deposit of 50% of the estimated costs may be required. The full cost must be collected before delivery.