Legislature OKs fees for electronic public records

Associated Press

OLYMPIA — The Legislature has approved a measure that will allow government agencies to charge fees for electronic copies of records.

The House on Monday voted 80-18 to approve House Bill 1595, agreeing with earlier changes made by the Senate, the News Tribune reported. The measure now heads to Gov. Jay Inslee for his signature.

While public agencies can already charge a default rate of up to 15 cents per page for photocopying documents in response to public records requests, state law doesn’t include comparable language for charging fees for documents that are scanned and sent by email, or records that are uploaded to an electronic delivery system.

The measure allows agencies to charge up to 10 cents per page for scanned documents and up to 5 cents for every four electronic attachments when replying to public records requests. Agencies would also be able to charge up to 10 cents per gigabyte of data or impose a flat fee of $2 for larger requests.