By Jeffrey A. Roberts
CFOIC Executive Director
It didn’t take long for several government entities in Colorado to adopt the new, much-higher, maximum CORA fee rate that went into effect on Monday, July 1.
At least 19 cities, towns, counties, state agencies, metro districts and school districts already have indicated they will now charge $41.37/hour, rather than the previous maximum rate of $33.58/hour, to process Colorado Open Records Act requests, a Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition review of government websites and news reports shows. Another raised its rate to $40/hour.
As required by a 2014 amendment to CORA, Legislative Council calculated the new top rate on June 12, inflating the current rate by the percentage change in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood consumer price index since 2019. Soaring inflation over the past five years is the reason for the $7.79-per-hour, 23.2 percent increase, which will make obtaining public records in Colorado even more expensive when requests take more than one hour to fill. (The first hour of research and retrieval still must be provided at no charge.)
Nothing in the law requires governments to adopt the new maximum rate, but it appears many will do so based on early indications. Among those that quickly published an hourly rate of $41.37 are Glenwood Springs, Broomfield, Parker, Colorado Parks & Wildlife, Pueblo School District 60, Highlands Ranch Metro District, Sheridan, LaSalle, Centennial Airport, Cortez, Black Hawk, Craig, Castle Rock, Mountain Village and Granby.
After the Cortez City Council recently approved the maximum-allowable fee, City Manager Drew Sanders told KSJD radio the city has been “bombarded” with CORA requests since the council voted down a zoning change last October. “We want to be open and transparent,” he said, “but we have to balance that with making the city run.”
On Tuesday, the Chaffee County Commission approved a new CORA research-and-retrieval rate of $40/hour, up from the current $30/hour rate. “We want the public to have access, but at the same time we have to be stewards of the public funds,” said board chair P.T. Wood, according to the Ark Valley Voice.
Fees can make public records in Colorado so pricey they are effectively off limits to the public. In 2020 CFOIC published a report calling for the General Assembly to reevaluate CORA’s “unbalanced” research-and-retrieval fee provision, but that hasn’t happened.
Because the hourly rate in CORA can be multiplied by an unlimited number of hours (after the first free hour), it’s not uncommon for governments to quote journalists and members of the public hundreds or even thousands of dollars to compile, review and redact requested records. CFOIC’s 2020 report documented numerous examples and asked lawmakers to reestablish a “nominal” fees standard upheld by the Colorado Court of Appeals in 2003.
Under the new top rate of $41.37/hour, a CORA request that takes 10 hours to process will cost as much as $372. Previously, it cost $302.
To impose the fee rate, a records custodian must post it on the government’s website or otherwise publish a written policy “that specifies the applicable conditions concerning the research and retrieval of public records by the custodian, including the amount of any current fee.”
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