Louisiana Passes Act No. 247 on Allowable Fees for Public Record Requests

On June 9, 2023, Governor Edwards signed Act No. 247 of the 2023 Regular Session which relates to the costs for public records. The Act seeks to address a previously unanswered question on the allowed fees associated with public records requests in Louisiana’s public records law. The Act will become effective on August 1, 2023.

Louisiana Revised Statute 44:32(C) provides that custodians of public records may charge copying fees for the production of public records pursuant to a public records request (“PRR”). For state agencies, those fees are set according to a uniform fee schedule established by the Commission of Administration.[1] The fee schedule can be found in Section 301 of Title 4 of the Louisiana Administrative Code.[2] However, for non-state agencies (which includes Hospital Service Districts), the statute only provides that “[t]he custodian may establish and collect reasonable fees for making copies of public records.”[3]

This necessarily introduces the question: What constitutes a reasonable fee?

In the past, the Louisiana Office of the Attorney General has suggested that non-state agencies adopt the uniform fee schedule for state agencies “to ensure objective reasonableness;”[4] however, this does not fully answer the question.

Now, Act No. 247 will amend La. R.S. 44:32(C) by adding a requirement that custodians who wish to collect reasonable fees “establish a reasonable fee schedule and post the schedule where it can be readily accessed by the public.”[5] Thus, non-state agencies will be required to post a fee schedule for what it believes to be “reasonable fees” if it wishes collect such a fee for production of public records.

Ultimately, entities subject to Louisiana’s public records law which are not state agencies are left in the same position they were before. With no guidance on what constitutes a “reasonable fee,” the conservative approach would probably be the adoption of the uniform fee schedule promulgated by the Commission of Administration, but the law does not require it.

In any event, once Act No. 247 because effective on August 1, 2023, these entities must create a fee schedule and have it posted where it can be readily accessed by the public if they wish to charge fees for the production of documents pursuant to a PRR.