The Nevada Open Government Coalition spoke out in strong opposition of Washoe County Resolution No. R21-063. This proposal sought to charge the public for “personnel time expended to fill a request that exceeds 2 hours of time.” Charging fees for personnel time is a clear violation of the Nevada Public Records Act (NPRA) and undermines its central purpose to serve as a check on government power through a broad right of public access to information.
The NPRA is clear that governmental entities are not allowed to pass along overhead – including regular staff time – to people exercising their right to access public records. The NPRA states:
“Actual cost” means the direct cost incurred by a governmental entity in the provision of a public record, including, without limitation, the cost of ink, toner, paper, media and postage. The term does not include a cost that a governmental entity incurs regardless of whether or not a person requests a copy of a particular public record.
The first sentence limits fees to “direct” costs. Personnel costs—which includes items like salary that are paid regardless of time expended—cannot possibly be considered a direct cost incurred as a result of fulfilling a public records request. Had the Legislature wanted to permit governmental entities to charge for any request that takes more than two hours to fulfill, it would have done so. Including staff costs that the governmental entity would incur regardless of whether the PRA request was made is thus expressly prohibited by the statute.
Watch the video of the meeting above, and read our testimony letter below.
I want to send a FOIA request to a nonprofit corporation in Nevada the Great Basin Insitute in Reno. They are a nonprofit corporation that receives donations and grants from the taxpayers. using a master stewardship agreement in my case, from the USDA forest service El Dorado Camino office, which is a forest service contract on the Caldor Fire scar in California. The Forest Service is still deeply involved in the project execution. The Great Bason Insitute claims that its policy is not to answer FOIA requests. The USDA FS claims that under the master stewardship agreement, they can't respond to the FOIA request, thus leaving me with no avenue to get public information for these projects. summary: GBI claim…