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Authorizes police agencies to charge fees for searching, copying, and mailing police agency generated records
In Assembly Committee · Governmental Operations · Sponsor Mark J.F. Schroeder
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the executive law, in relation to authorizing police agencies to include administrative costs in fees for copies of police agency records
Purpose
Enactment of this legislation would authorize police agencies to charge certain fees for searching, copying and mailing police agency generated records.
Summary of provisions
Section 1 amends the executive law by adding a new section 837 -s by authorizing local police agencies to charge a fee for searching police agency records, copying said documents, and preparing such documents for mailing. No fee shall be charged for any public officer, board or other specified public entity.
Subsection 2 states that such fee shall be five dollars per request for searches conducted manually, and three dollars for searches undertaken by electronic medium.
Subsection 3 provides that the fee for copies of documents other than accident reports shall be one dollar per page, and the fee for an accident report shall be fifteen dollars.
Existing law
Current law limits the amount a local police agency may charge for such records to twenty-five cents.
Justification
Currently a local police department, receiving a Freedom of Information Act (FOIL) request from an insurance company for a copy of an accident report, may only charge a maximum of twenty five cents for a copy of that report. Those persons actually involved in an accident cannot be charged any fee or a copy of the report. Obviously, the costs involved in searching, copying, handling and mailing these documents far exceed the current fee structure.
The State Legislature recognized this inequity in the past, by making an exception to the statutes governing this fee structure, in that section 202.3 of the vehicle and traffic law allows the NYS Department of Motor Vehicles to charge fifteen dollars for a copy of an accident report.
Local governments are under extreme pressure to cut costs and do more with less personnel. It is not unreasonable to provide local police agencies the same fee structure as provided to the NYS Department of Motor Vehicles.
Legislative history
New bill - 2009.
Fiscal implications
None to New York State.
Local fiscal implications
Favorable for local governments.
Effective date
This act shall take effect on the sixtieth day after it shall become law.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.