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RE 10-25-94.1 RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF COPPELL RESOLUTION NO.102594.1 A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF COPPELL ESTABLISHING PROCEDURES AND COST OF PROVIDING PUBLIC INFORMATION PURSUANT TO THE OPEN RECORDS ACT, CHAPTER 552 OF THE TEXAS GOVERNMENT CODE; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE. WHEREAS, the General Service Commission of the State of Texas has promulgated rules and regulations to assist political subdivisions of the State of Texas in providing copies of public records pursuant to the Open Records Act, Chapter 552 of the Texas Government Code; and WHEREAS, the City Council desires to adopt the methods and procedures promulgated by the General Services Commission to be used in determining the amounts that may be charged to recover the full cost of providing copies of public records under the Open Records Act, Chapter 552 of the Texas Government Code, as amended; NOW, THEREFORE BE IT ORDAINED BYTHE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF COPPELL, TEXAS: SECTION 1. That attached hereto as Exhibit "A" are the methods and procedures to be used in determining the amounts that may be charged to recover the full cost of providing copies of public records of the City of Coppell, Texas, under the Open Records Act, Chapter 552 of the Texas Government Code, as amended. SECTION 2. This resolution shall become effective immediately from and after its passage, as the law and charter in such cases provide. AGG06014 DULY PASSED and approved by the City Council of the City of Coppell, Texas, on this the 25 day of October 1994. APPROVED: TOM MORTON, MAYOR ATTEST: LINDA GRAU, CITY SECRETARY APPROVED AS TO FORM: PETER G. SMITH CITY ATTORNEY (PGS/ckh 10-20-94) AGG06014 EXHIBIT "A" METHODS AND PROCEDURES FOR DETERMINING COST OF PROVIDING PUBLIC INFORMATION UNDER THE OPEN RECORDS ACT I. DEFINITIONS The following words and terms, when used in herein shall have the following meanings, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Full Cost - The sum of all direct costs plus a proportional share of overhead, or indirect cost. Full cost should be determined in accordance with the generally accepted methodologies. To determine full costs, the City may utilize the cost methodology adopted by the Council on Competitive Government. Nonstandard-size copy - A copy of public information that is made available to a requestor in any format other than a standard-size paper copy. Microfiche, microfilm, diskettes, magnetic tapes, CD-ROM, and nonstandard-size paper copies are examples of nonstandard-size copies. Readily available information - Information that already exists in printed form, or information that is stored electronically and is ready to be printed or copied without requiring any programming, or information that already exists on microfiche or microfilm. Information that requires a substantial amount of time to locate or prepare for release is not readily available information. Standard-size copy - A printed impression on one side of a piece of paper that measures up to 8 1/2 by 14 inches. Each side of a piece of paper on which an impression is made is counted as a single copy. A piece of paper that is printed on both sides is counted as two copies. II. CHARGES FOR PROVIDING COPIES OF PUBLIC INFORMATION A. The charges in this section are to recover costs associated with providing copies of public information and are based on estimated average costs to City. When actual costs vary greatly from those used in these rules, the City should use the actual cost to calculate the charges. B. Copy charges 1. Standard-size copy - the charge for standard-size paper copies reproduced by means of an office machine copier or a computer printer is $.10 per page. 2. Nonstandard-size copy - the charges for nonstandard copies are: Diskette @ $ 1.00 Computer magnetic tape @ $10.00 VHS video cassette @ $ 2.50 Audio cassette @ $ 1.00 Paper copy @ $ .50 3. The charges in this subsection are to cover the cost of materials onto which the information is copied and do not reflect any additional charges that may be associated with a particular request. C. Personnel Charge 1. The charges for personnel costs incurred in processing a request for public information is $15.00 an hour, which is the average hourly cost, including fringe benefits, to the City for an employee as the date of these rules. Where applicable, the personnel charge should be prorated to cover the cost for personnel time spent to take requests, locate documents, and reproduce requested information. 2. A personnel charge should not be billed in connection with complying with requests that are for 50 or fewer pages of readily available information in standard-size form. 3. Personnel time should not be recovered for any time spent by an attorney, legal assistant, or any other person who reviews the requested information: a. To determine whether the City will raise any exceptions to disclosure of the requested information under subchapter C of The Open Records Act; or b. To research or prepare a request for a ruling by the Attorney General's Office pursuant to the Open Records Act. D. Overhead Charges 1. In response to a request either for information that is not readily available or for in excess of 50 pages of readily available information, the City may include in the charges direct and indirect costs, in addition to the personnel charge. This overhead charge would cover such costs as depreciation of capital assets, rent, maintenance and repair, utilities and administrative overhead. The charge will be made in accordance with the methodology described in Section II(D)(3). Although an exact calculation of costs will vary, the use of a standard charge will avoid complication in calculating such costs and will provide uniformity for charges made. 2. An overhead charge should not be made for requests for copies of 50 pages or less of readily available information in standard-size form. 3. The overhead charge shall be computed at 20 percent of any charge made to cover personnel costs associated with a particular request. For example, if one hour of personnel time is expended to respond to a particular request, the personnel charge would be $15.00 and the overhead charge would be $3.00. E. Microfiche and microfilm charge. 1. If the City already has information that exists on microfilm or has microfilm copies available, the charge is the total of the costs of making the copy of the fiche or film. If the requestor prefers to have a copy of the fiche or film, itself, and the information on the fiche or film can be released in its entirety, the City should make a copy of the fiche or film available and charge for the cost of having such a copy made. 2. If a master copy of information in microfilm is maintained, the suggested charge is $.10 per page for standard-size paper plus a charge to cover any personnel time spent in making the paper copies. F. Remote document retrieval charge. 1. Due to limited on-site capacity of storage of documents, it is frequently necessary to store information that is not in current use in remote storage locations. To the extent that retrieval of documents results in a charge to comply with a request, it is permissible to recover costs of such services. Where a charge is made for documentation retrieval, no additional personnel charge should be factored in for time spent locating documents. G. Computer Resource Charge. 1. The computer resource charge is a utilization charge for computers based on the amortized cost of acquisition, lease, operation, and maintenance of computer resources, which might include, but is not limited to, some or all of the following: central processing units (CPUs), servers, disk drives, local area networks (LANs), printers, tape drives, other peripheral devices, communications devices, software, and system utilities. 2. There is currently a wide range of computer capabilities. Many organizations with more advanced computer capabilities have already developed methodologies to recover the costs of computer utilization. Nonetheless, in response to request for public information, the City will use the uniform charges set forth herein. The computer resource charges are not intended to substitute for cost recovery methodologies or charges made for purposes other than responding to open records requests. 3. Uniform computer resource charges: Type of System Rate Mainframe $17.50 per minute Midrange $ 3.00 per minute Client/Server $1.00 per minute PC or LAN $ .50 per minute 4. The charge made to recover the computer utilization cost is the actual time the computer takes to execute a particular program times the applicable rate. The CPU charge is not meant to apply to programming or printing time; rather, it is solely to recover costs associated with the actual time required by the computer to execute a program. This time frame most frequently will be a matter of seconds. If programming is required to comply with a particular request, the appropriate charge that may be recovered for programming time is set forth in the subsection below. No charge should be made for computer print-out time. For example, the computer resource charge for a request that takes 20 seconds to execute on a mainframe system would be $5.83. H. Programming time. 1. If a particular request requires a programmer to enter data in order to execute an existing program or to create a new program so that requested information may be accessed, the City may charge for the programmer's time. The average hourly salary of a programmer for the State of Texas is currently $26.00 an hour, including fringe benefits, which is the charge to be used in these rules. Any charge for programming time should be prorated. Only programming services should be charged at this hourly rate. Any personnel time spent in performing services other than programming should be charged at the rate specified for personnel as described in above. I. Miscellaneous supplies. 1. The actual cost of miscellaneous supplies, such as labels, boxes, and other supplies used to produce the requested information may be added to the total charge for public information. J. Postal and shipping charges. 1. The City may add any related postal or shipping expenses which are necessary to transmit the reproduced information to the requesting party. K. Fax charge. 1. The charge for a fax transmitted locally is $.10 per page. The suggested charge for long distance transmission is $.50 per page for a fax sent within the sender's area code, and $1.00 per page for a fax transmitted to a different area code. L. Sales tax. 1. Sales tax should not be added on charges for public information. M. Review. 1. The City may reevaluate and update annually the charges recommended in these rules and to the extent they are in conflict with the rules and regulations promulgated by the General Services Commission those rules shall control. III. ACCESS TO INFORMATION WHERE COPIES ARE NOT REQUESTED A. Access to information in standard-size form. 1. The City should not charge for making available for inspection information maintained in standard-size form. Access charges are permitted only where the City is asked to provide copies of information that is not readily available or that is for more than 50 pages of readily available information in standard-size form. B. Access to information in other than standard-size form. 1. In response to requests for access, for purposes of inspection only, to information that is maintained in other than standard-size form, the City may charge the requesting party the cost of preparing and making available such information, unless the information is readily available. Preparation might involve retrieval of information from a database, and deletion of confidential information. In such a case, the City may recover the cost of personnel as set forth in above. IV. FORMAT FOR COPIES OF PUBLIC INFORMATION To the extent possible the City should attempt to accommodate a requesting party by providing information in the format requested. If a requesting party asks that the information be provided on a diskette, and the requested information is electronically stored, the City should provide the information on diskette. The extent to which a requestor can be accommodated will depend largely on the technological capability of the City to which the request is made. The City is not required to acquire software or programming capabilities that it does not already possess to accommodate a particular kind of request. V. ESTIMATES AND WAIVERS OF PUBLIC INFORMATION CHARGES A. A party requesting copies of public information will not always be aware of the amount of time and cost that may be involved in complying with a particular request. Where a particular request will involve considerable time and resources to process, the City may advise the requesting party of what may be involved and to provide an estimate of the date of completion and the charges that may result. All efforts should be made to process requests as efficiently as possible so that requested information may be provided at the lowest possible charge. When the City charges for public information, full disclosure should be made to the requesting party as to how the charges were calculated. B. A deposit shall be required in the amount of the estimated charges if such charges exceed $100.00. VI. EXAMPLE OF CHARGES FOR COPIES OF PUBLIC INFORMATION A. The following tables present a few examples of the calculations of charges for information: TABLE 1 Readily Available Information (fewer than 50 pages): $.10 per copy x number of copies (standard-size paper copies) or cost of nonstandard copy (e.g., diskette) + Postage and shipping (if applicable) $ TOTAL CHARGE .TABLE 2 Readily Available Information (more than 50 pages): $.10 per copy x number of copies (standard-size copies) or cost of nonstandard copy (e.g., diskette) + Personnel charge (if applicable) + Overhead charge (if applicable) + Document retrieval charge (if applicable) + Actual cost of miscellaneous supplies (if applicable) + Postage and shipping (if applicable) $ TOTAL CHARGE TABLE 3 Information that is Not Readily Available: Cost of copy (standard-size or nonstandard-size, whichever applies) + Personnel charge + Overhead charge + Computer resource charge (if applicable) + Programming time (if applicable) + Document retrieval charge (if applicable) + Actual cost of miscellaneous supplies (if applicable) + Postage and shipping (if applicable) $ TOTAL CHARGE VII. CITY CHARGE SCHEDULE The following is a summary of the charges for copies of public information that have been adopted by the City: Service Rendered Charge (1) Standard-size paper copy $ .10 per page (2) Nonstandard-size copy (A) Diskette $1.00 each (B) Magnetic tape $10.00 each (C) VHS video cassette $ 2.50 each (D) Audio cassette $1.00 each (E) Paper copy $ .50 each (F) Other Actual cost (3) Personnel charge $15.00 per hour (4) Overhead charge 20% of personnel charge (5) Microfiche or microfilm charge (A) Papercopy $ .10 per page (B) Fiche or film copy Actual cost (6) Remote document retrieval charge Actual cost (7) Computer resource charge (A) Mainframe $17.50 per minute (B) Midsize $ 3.00 per minute (C) Client/Server $1.00 per minute (D) PC or LAN $ .50 per minute (8) Programming time charge $26.00 per hour (9) Miscellaneous supplies Actual cost (10) Postage and shipping charge Actual cost (11) Fax charge (A) local $ .10 per page (B) long distance, same area code $ .50 per page (C) long distance, different area $1.00 per page code (12) Other costs Actual cost VIII. BILLING FORM The City may use the following billing form or a reasonable facsimile to itemize the charges made for public information. PUBLIC RECORDS CHARGES BILLING Description of Information Date Agency / Company Method of Payment: Address Cash Check Other Telephone No. () - Number Total Standard-size Paper Copies @ $.10/page $ Nonstandard-size Copies: - Diskette @ $1.00/ea. $ - Magnetic Tape @ $10.00/ea. $ - VHS Video Cassette @ $2.50/ea. $ - Audio Cassette @ $1.00/ea. $ - Paper @ $.50/ea. $ - Other (actual cost) $ Personnel Charges @ $15.00/hr. $ Overhead Charges (20%) of Total Personnel Charges) x .20 $ Computer Resource Charges: - Midframe @ $17.50/min. $ - Midrange @ $3.00/min. - Client/Server @ $1.00/min. $ - PC or LAN @ $0.50/min. $ Programming Time @ $26.00/hr. $ Postage / Shipping Charges (actual cost) $ Fax Charges: - Local @ $0.10/page $ - Long Distance / Same Area Code @ $0.50/page - Long Distance / Other Area Code @ $1.00/page $ Other Charges (Description: ) $ TOTAL CHARGES: $ *Note: Sales tax is not applicable on public records.