SWEETWATER COUNTY — The Sweetwater County commissioners are interested in establishing new rules for county public information requests.
The Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to issue a notice of intent to adopt new public records regulations during its meeting Tuesday morning. The proposed regulations would allow the county to charge for time spent by county employees in preparing the records requested.
Sweetwater County Clerk Cindy Swenson said county residents have 45 days to provide comments on the proposed rules, with the deadline for comments being March 2. A public hearing will take place March 17, with the commissioners deciding if they will adopt the new rules following the hearing.
According to the proposed rules, citing Wyoming Statute 16-4-202, a records custodian can charge an applicant a “reasonable cost” related to producing or creating a copy of an electronic public record for review or copying. The cost can include and isn’t limited to the time spent finding the documents requested, reviewing, sorting, redacting, formatting and compiling the records, as well as any costs associated with the creation of a new electronic public record from existing data and the programming and computer services associated with it.
Production and construction costs would bill $15.50 per hour for clerical and support staff time, $30 an hour for information technology staff time, $40 an hour for professional staff time, and the actual costs associated with programming and computer services.
Other costs included in the proposal are 25 cents per black and white copy, $1 per color copy, and the actual costs associated with printing a page size outside of a standard or legal sheet of paper, printing a photograph, utilization of an outside vendor for copying and other special instances.
