Alexander to withdraw bill imposing fees to view public records

NASHVILLE — State Rep. Rebecca Alexander, R-Jonesborough, announced Thursday she intends to withdraw legislation which would impose fees on those who wish to inspect public records. "After careful consideration and thoughtful feedback from constituents across Washington County, I have decided to withdraw House Bill 2500," Alexander said in a statement to Six Rivers Media. "I sincerely appreciate everyone who took the time to share their ideas and engage in this important discussion." Currently, local and state governments can only impose fees on those who request copies of public records. If they wish to only inspect the records, however, governments are prevented by law from charging the requestor. HB2500 would have removed that barrier. "Transparency and accountability are fundamental to a healthy representative republic," said Alexander. "I remain firmly committed to ensuring our government is accessible and will continue working with my colleagues to ensure government is working at the greatest efficiency for the people it serves." The bill was part of the legislative agenda for the Tennessee Municipal League, an organization that advocates on behalf of city and town governments across the state. "Gathering, reviewing, and redacting (if necessary) any public record takes staff time and uses municipal resources. Those are costs ultimately borne by all municipal taxpayers," said a spokesperson for TML. "The proposed legislation remedies the conflict in the public records law by allowing the recovery of costs to produce a public record, whether a requester intends to inspect the record in the office or take it home." However, opponents of the legislation argued the bill would do the exact opposite by establishing a de facto paywall to public records – and that paywall could have been high. As written, the bill required charges to be based on the hourly wages of the employee deemed necessary to compile the records. The first hour spent gathering, reviewing and redacting information would be free, as per the state's current policy for open records requests. However, any additional time would be based on the hourly wages of the employee deemed necessary to compile the records. Those rates could be based on an attorney's fees if redactions or checks for legal compliance were necessary, potentially resulting in hundreds or even thousands of dollars requesters would have to pay before seeing certain public records. "[Proponents of the bill] forget that it is a responsibility of government to manage its own records and to be able to make those available to citizens," said Deborah Fisher, director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, during a conversation prior to Alexander's announcement. "We pay for that. [Governments] hire public information officers for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and they have multiple ones, and it seems like they could spare $500 here and now to make some inspection available for free to somebody." Similar efforts to establish fees on inspection of public records failed in 2015 amid overwhelming opposition from the public. A Comptroller's Office survey found an "overwhelming concern" from citizens in response to the proposed legislation. HB2500 and its Senate counterpart had not yet been introduced to committees or received a vote. As of the time of writing, the bills have not yet been taken off notice.