Earlier quoted context omitted.
”Do you have a detailed cost estimate?” Indeed we do! Several pages, including methodology. Here you go: https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10... Just a quick sample: ”By way of background, our research would indicate the industry standard for fees for a job of this size – turning existing microfiche sheets into scanned digital images – would be approximately $3,000, not $152,000. This would in…
I admire your mission and understand your approach. My only comment for what it's worth is that you may want to pursue a different path for these historical records. Using FOIL to access archival records is not a cost-efficient strategy for any stakeholder. In my opinion, as an observer with no skin in the game is that investing the legal resources you have and working with someone like the library association to lob…
The costs of records requests are entirely borne by the requestor. We pay for the copies (but only the actual duplication costs, no mark-up allowed), we pay for the labor (at the government worker’s actual salary), we pay for the physical media like a USB hard drive or DVD’s, we pay for the shipping.
All the clerk needs to do is agree that the Freedom of Information request is legitimate and not prohibited by any exceptions to the law. And for that, the government employee has free legal counsel available to them in New York, in the form of the Committee on Open Government (COOG), which provides free Advisory Opinions of questions of the law. They answer questions by both e-mail and phone within 24-48 hours, from both requestors and agencies. Other states have similar programs available.
So yeah, this digitization is actually totally free to the government. We bear the costs, not them.
...unless they ignore the law entirely, in which case they get the pleasure of paying for their attorneys, and our attorney fees too. We’ve won those twice so far.
(by the way, the “corruption” in Albany line is a song lyric from the musical “Hamilton”)