Belmont, Math Parents v. Belmont, Town of - Public Schools (SPR 20260460)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records February 24, 2026 SPR26/0460 Artemis Tingos Executive Assistant to the Superintendent Office of the Superintendent Belmont Public Schools 644 Pleasant Street Belmont, MA 02478 Dear Ms. Tingos: I have received the petition of Belmont Math Parents (requestor) appealing the response of the Belmont Public Schools (School) to a request for public records. See G. L. c. 66 § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On September 30, 2025, the requestor sought, “[a]ll emails, texts and messages between [two identified individuals] from August 15, 2024 to October 15, 2024 and/or from February 15, 2025 to May 15, 2025 regarding Challenger Geometry, math placements, or MDTP. This request is not seeking records related to any individual student or parent.” Previous Appeal This request was the subject of a previous appeal. See SPR25/3165 Determination of the Supervisor of Records (November 7, 2025). In my November 7th determination, I found that the School must revise its fee estimate or provide further explanation of how the assessed fee was consistent with the Public Records Law. The School provided a response on November 12, 2025. Unsatisfied with the response, the requestor petitioned this office and this appeal, SPR26/0460, was opened as a result. Fee Estimates – Municipalities If there are any fees associated with a response a written, good faith estimate must be provided. G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(viii); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.07(2). Once fees are paid, a records custodian must provide the responsive records. A municipality may assess a reasonable fee for the production of a public record except those records that are freely available for public inspection. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d). The fees must 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

Artemis Tingos SPR26/0460 Page 2 February 24, 2026 reflect the actual cost of complying with a particular request. Id. A maximum fee of five cents ($.05) per page may assessed for a black and white single or double-sided photocopy of a public record. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(i). Municipalities may not assess a fee for the first two (2) hours of employee time to search for compile, segregate, redact or reproduce the record of records requested unless the municipality has 20,000 people or less. G. L. c. 66, § 10(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, segrgegate, redact or reproduce the record requested, but the fee shall not be more than $25 per hour. Id. However, municipalities may charge more than $25 per hour if such rate is approved by the Supervisor of Records under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). 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 under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). The School’s November 12th Response In its October 3, 2025 fee estimate, the School provided a fee estimate of $319.00 and stated it would take .16 hours to complete its search for the records and 14.6 hours to “segregat[e] the [r]ecords, [r]eview for [r]esponsiveness, [u]ploading, [and] [r]edacting” of “8 emails @ 5 minutes each” and “14 emails at 10 minutes each” with the “[f]irst 2 hours” free for a total of 12.76 hours. In its November 12, 2025 response, the School provided the following explanation for its fee estimate: The process for good faith fee estimates and subsequent invoices: The .16 hours indicated in the invoice refers to the time it takes the Technology Department to search and generate a group of emails using the search parameters. The system is not a sophisticated one and this search results in a .pst formatted group. The remaining fee estimates deal with reviewing for responsiveness, uploading, redacting etc. The .pst folder is shared with the ROA who must then extract the files using an email program which takes several minutes. Each individual email must then be reviewed for responsiveness to the request, then if found to be responsive converted into a .pdf, placed on the desktop and then uploaded into the Next Request system. Once in the NextRequest system, emails are redacted if needed. The redaction time varies, depending on the amount of redaction needed in each email[.] As the requestor specified themselves in their October 30, 2025, email to you, “Because the town’s system requires us to access each file individually, download

Artemis Tingos SPR26/0460 Page 3 February 24, 2026 it, and then email it to you, it is a time-consuming process.” The same applies to the process the ROA must go through in order to reply to email search requests and upload the emails into the NextRequest system for release to the requestor. Each email varies in length from one page to several (14 pages). The maximum fee of $25 per hour is the lowest rate for an employee capable of performing the tasks involved in producing the records. Fee Waiver G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(v) provides the following with respect to waiving a fee for the production of responsive records: the records access officer may waive or reduce the amount of any fee charged under this subsection upon a showing that disclosure of a requested record is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requestor, or upon a showing that the requestor lacks the financial ability to pay the full amount of the reasonable fee. Please be advised, although the Supervisor may encourage fees to be waived, the Supervisor may not mandate that a records access officer waive fees assessed for complying with a public records request; rather, as described above, the records access officer may waive or reduce the amount of any fee upon a showing of various factors. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(v); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.07(2)(k). Reasonableness of the fee estimate Where the School has explained the amount of time it requires to complete the search and compilation process, I find that the School has met its burden to establish that it would take .16 hours to locate the responsive records. However, it remains unclear why the School requires 5 minutes to review each of the 8 identified emails and 10 minutes to review each of the 14 identified emails. Further, where the School states that the emails “var[y] in length from one page to several (14 pages)”, the School must clarify how much time is needed to review the one page emails versus the longer emails. Additionally, based on the School’s response it is uncertain how it can assess a fee for time to save the records to another format, time to convert the records, and time to upload the records into a program which would allow the records to be sent under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii). The School must clarify how these tasks constitute time to search for, compile, segregate, redact, or reproduce records. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv) (requiring the amount of the fee be reasonable). Further, where the School indicates that it intends to redact the responsive records, it must clarify if the redactions are required by law, and state the applicable statutes, if any. Pursuant to the Public Records Law, a fee may not be assessed for time spent segregating or

Artemis Tingos SPR26/0460 Page 4 February 24, 2026 redacting records unless such segregation or redaction is required by law or approved by the Supervisor of Records under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(ii); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). The School must clarify this matter. This office encourages the parties to communicate to facilitate providing records more efficiently and affordably. The requestor may wish to narrow the request. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(vii) (a municipality shall suggest a reasonable modification of the scope of the request or offer to assist the requestor to modify the scope of the request if doing so would enable the municipality to produce the records sought more efficiently and affordably). Any revision to the request would result in the requirement to issue a revised fee estimate. Conclusion Accordingly, the School is ordered to provide the requestor with a response to the request, provided in a manner consistent with this order, the Public Records Law, and its Regulations within ten (10) business days. A copy of any such response must be provided to this office. It is preferable to send an electronic copy of the response to this office at pre@sec.state.ma.us. Sincerely, Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records cc: Belmont Math Parents