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Meeting Public Comments

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SF 218
A bill for an act relating to the assessment of fees when a person requests examination and copying of public records.(See SF 480, SF 2322.)
Agenda
Subcommittee members: Brown-CH, Bisignano, Johnson
Date: Monday, February 15, 2021
Time: 2:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Location: RM 24A
Comments Submitted:
The purpose of comments is to provide information to members of the subcommittee.
Names and comments are public records. Remaining information is considered a confidential record.

02-15-2021
Bethany Steichen []
I fully support this bill! I do feel like reasonable should be defined better as we all know people will all have different definitions of this if left undefined.I attempted a FOIA request to a state department back in 2017 and after making the request, it being redacted as needed, etc, I then was told that it would cost me $525$550 for a CD of the documents I asked for. When I asked why it cost so much I was told that it was because it needed redacted and they needed to pay employees for doing it. Is that not what my tax dollars do? Pay state employees? To my knowledge, everything was collected, redacted and digitized before I was even told the price it would cost me.Iowa code states the "The lawful custodian may charge A REASONABLE fee for the services..." I had no issues paying for the contents of my FOIA request, but $500+ for it? I feel as though the price was hiked up so that I wouldn't get what I was looking for, knowing most people wouldn't pay that much for the information. This bill will make information much easier accessible to the public AS IT SHOULD BE and open up the lack of transparency state departments have.