Ronald Alexander v. Natick, Town of - Public Schools (SPR 20180966)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor ofR ecords July 3, 2018 SPRlS/966 Timothy Luff Natick Public Schools Office of the Superintendent 13 East Central Street Natick, MA 01760 Dear Mr. Luff: I have received your petition on behalf of the Natick Public Schools (School) requesting to charge for time spent segregating and redacting public records and to charge an hourly fee in excess of $25 in responding to a request made by Ronald Alexander. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d )(iv). As required by law, the School provided a copy of this petition to the requestor. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv)(2). Between June 14, 2018 and June 20, 2018, Mr. Alexander made requests for various records related to the School and other entities. Petitions for ability to assess fees Municipalities may not assess a fee for the first two hours of employee time to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce the record or records requested unless the municipality has 20,000 people or less. G. L. c. 66, § lO(d)(iii). Where appropriate, municipalities may include as part of the fee an hourly rate equal to or less than the hourly rate attributed to the lowest paid employee who has the necessary skill required to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce a record requested, but the fee shall not be more than $25 per hour. Id. A fee shall not be assessed for time spent segregating or redacting records unless such segregation or redaction is required by law or approved by the Supervisor of Records (Supervisor) under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § lO(d)(iv). See G. L. c. 66, § lO(d)(iii); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). The Supervisor may approve a petition from a municipality to charge for time spent segregating or redacting or to charge in excess of $25 per hour, if the Supervisor determines that 1) the request is for a commercial purpose or 2) the fee represents an actual and good faith representation by the municipality to comply with the request, the fee is necessary such that the request could not have been prudently completed without the redaction, segregation or fee in One Ashburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 • (617) 727-2832• Fax: (617) 727-5914 sec.state.ma.us/pre• pre@sec.state.ma.us

Timothy Luff SPR18/966 Page 2 July 3, 2018 excess of $25 per hour, and the amount of the fee is reasonable and the fee is not designed to limit, deter or prevent access to requested public records. G. L. c. 66, § lO(d)(iv). In rendering such a decision, the Supervisor is required to consider the following: a) the public interest served by limiting the cost of public access to the records; b) the financial ability of the requestor to pay the additional or increased fees; and c) any other relevant extenuating circumstances. Id. The Town's June 28th petition In its June 28th petition, the School seeks to charge for segregation and redaction at an hourly rate in excess of $25. The School indicates that it is seeking to charge for 13 hours of segregation time and 2 hours of redaction time at a rate of $30 "given the highly confidential student and/or staff information that may be encountered." The School indicates it "has counted more than 1,622 records that may be responsive to [Mr. Alexander's] request." With respect to the segregation and redaction fee, the School indicates it plans "[t]o segregate and redact confidential information, and based upon [the School's] completion of [Mr. Alexander's] previous request for all January and March Committee emails (which took ... 3 days), [the School] estimate[s] a minimum of 15 hours to segregate and redact highly confidential information that may exist therein." The School explains that the requested "[c]orrespondence among School District Administration, Town Officials, Elected Boards, School Committee members often contain personal and confidential information regarding students, members of the public, and/or personnel." With respect to the hourly rate, the School explains that "[i]n order to complete this search and to identify what, if any records fall within privacy exemptions, this search can only be completed by a high level town employee. The rate requested is based upon the current rate of [Mr. Luff's] Administrative Assistant who may assist [him] in the segregation and redaction of these documents after [his] review of each document. [Mr. Luff's] individual rate, which [he is] not requesting at this time, is $67 per hour. In the interest of keeping the cost down for this review, [Mr. Luff] chose to use [his] Administrative Asst. rate, even though [he] will be primarily performing the search, segregation, and redaction of necessary documents." Based on the School's June 28th petition, I find the School has met its burden to explain how the fee is necessary such that the request could not prudently be completed without redaction or segregation or by assessing a fee in excess of $25 per hour. See G. L. c. 66 § lO(d)(iv). Conclusion For the reasons described above, the School is permitted to charge for time spent segregating and redacting the requested records at a rate of $30 per hour. The School must provide the records in compliance with this determination, the Public Records Law, and its

Timothy Luff SPR18/966 Page 3 July 3, 2018 Access Regulations. Please note, the requestor has the right to seek judicial review of this decision by commencing a civil action in the appropriate superior court. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv)(4), lOA(c). Sincerely, Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records cc: Ronald Alexander