Would you pay $170 for a 15 page document (that you should already have)?

In the next two years, Oregon taxpayers are projected to spend an estimated $665 million on corporate tax subsidies that are intended to create jobs and promote economic growth. Unfortunately, these same Oregon taxpayers have to overcome substantial hurdles when seeking the most basic information about these subsidies. 

This summer, OSPIRG made a series of public records requests to obtain information about the economic development tax subsidy programs that have been omitted from the Oregon Transparency Website for an upcoming report. Last week, the Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE) responded to our public records request for the applications for the Renewable Energy Grant program from 2012. There were three approved applications, each five pages with an unspecified amount of additional attachments. 

The public records officer at ODOE informed us that for the three applications they would charge $170 and cited that it would take four hours of staff time to complete the request. He also informed us that the new deputy director for ODOE recently decided that there would be no more fee waivers for any public records requests, across the whole agency.

First, this information should already be made available to the public on the Oregon Transparency Website to give taxpayers a full picture of how tax dollars are spent. If state agencies would provide information about these tax subsidies on the transparency website, as they are supposed to, OSPIRG and members of the public wouldn’t have to go through lengthy and costly public records requests.

Second, $170 may not seem like much, but for a member of the public this fee is a significant barrier to access— especially when you consider that this information should already be made available on the Oregon transparency website. Would you pay $170 for a fifteen page electronic file?

Third, there is no standard for how many pages per hour it takes to compile and review records requests, so it is left up to the person compiling the request to state how long it will take him/her. Is it reasonable to take four hours of staff time to compile and review three relatively small electronic files? If the request is fifteen pages, this roughly breaks down to 16 minutes per page!

Fourth, why would the new Deputy Director make an agency-wide policy to no longer waive fees for public records requests when the law already gives the agency the flexibility to decide whether or not to waive the fees? 

Finally, it is the law in Oregon that the person making a public records request pay for the staff time associated with their request and the cost of any materials including photocopies, etc, so ODOE charging for public records isn’t a violation of the law. But, the law itself is flawed. Taxpayers pay taxes to pay the salary of the person responsible for putting together public records requests. Then they have to pay for this staff time again with their records request. Why should taxpayers have to pay for the same thing twice?

The ability of the public to see how their government uses the public purse is fundamental to democracy. Transparency in government spending checks corruption, bolsters public confidence in government and promotes greater effectiveness and fiscal responsibility. 

As stewards of tax dollars, state agencies should be working to make information on government spending as transparent and accessible as possible— not putting up more barriers.