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30 Section III: Duties Relating to Public Access • FEES FOR PROVIDING COPIES OF PUBLIC DATA Minnesota Statutes section 13.03 provides that, if a person requests copies or electronic transmittal of public government data, the responsible authority for the government entity may require the requesting person to pay the actual costs of searching for and retrieving government data, including the cost of employee time, and for making, certifying, compiling and electronically transmitting copies of the data, or the data themselves, but may not charge for separating public data from not public data. Additional criteria for determining copy costs are set forth at Minnesota Rules, part 1205.0300, subpart 4. Various Commissioner's opinions, issued pursuant to Minnesota Statutes section 13.072, have established the following factors that may be used to determine how much an entity may charge for providing copies of public data. THESE COSTS MAY BE INCLUDED, AS LONG AS THEY ARE REASONABLE: • Staff time required to: • retrieve documents (The requirement that data be kept in a manner that makes them easily accessible for convenient use may limit the entity in charging for search and retrieval time) • sort and label documents, if necessary to identify the data to be copied • remove staples, paper clips • take documents to copier for copying • copy documents • Materials (paper, copier ink, staples, diskettes, mag tapes, video or audio cassettes, etc.) • Special costs associated with making copies from computerized data, such as writing or modifying a • computer program to format data (keeping in mind that computerized data must be easily accessible for convenient use) • Mailing costs • Vehicle costs directly involved in transporting data to the appropriate facility when necessary to provide copies (for example, when the government entity is unable to provide copying services for photographs, oversize documents, videos, etc.) THESE COSTS MAYNOT BE INCLUDED: • Purchase of copier • Maintenance of copier • Normal operating expenses of computer • Staff time required to: • Separate public from not public data • Open a data request that was mailed • Sort, label or review data, if not necessary to identify the data to be copied • Return documents to storage • Provide information about the data to the requester (ie, explain content and meaning of data) • Administrative costs that are not related to copying • Records storage • Sales tax • The entire cost of operating amulti-tasked computer for a measured unit of time, when fulfilling a request for copies was only one of the tasks performed during that unit of time. July, 2000 Model Policy: Access to Government Data & Rights of Subjects Data