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Public Records Fees

In responding to public records requests the City of Boston provides transparency and a high level of service to constituents, protects the privacy and safety of employees and constituents, and promotes sustainability through responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources.

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BACKGROUND

The City’s fee policy for public records requests is meant to ensure that the public records process can operate smoothly and transparently. The City only charges a fee for particularly high-volume, time-intensive requests. These are a small fraction of the requests the City receives; the City responds to the vast majority of public records requests for no charge. 

Charging a fee to complete particularly resource-intensive requests allows the City to best meet its goals of transparency and timeliness in the public records process. The fee policy:

  • Allows the City to be more responsive to records requests, by generating additional resources that the City can dedicate to its public records process;
  • Ensures fiscal responsibility and sustainability, by providing a moderate level of compensation for requests that require significant staff time and resources; and
  • Provides consistency and predictability regarding when the City will charge fees in accordance with state law.

The volume of public records requests received by the City has increased significantly since the state Public Records Law was reformed in 2017:

Year Number of Requests 
2018 1,171
2019 1,888
2020 3,325
2021 5,197
2022 7,474
2023 8,671

The City received 4,626 requests in the first six months of 2024. 

This fee policy allows the City to continue providing full, timely responses to public records requests, even as the number of requests continues to increase.

Fee Request Policy

Public records requests are governed by Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66, Section 10. The Public Records Law allows recordkeepers to charge “a reasonable fee to recover the costs of complying with a public records request.” The state Supervisor of Records generally accepts a one minute per record rate of review. The law provides that municipalities may charge $25 per hour (or a higher rate if approved by the Commonwealth’s Supervisor of Records), after the first two hours spent on a request. City staff can generally review one record per minute.

Therefore, the City will charge a fee where a request requires review of at least 120 records, either to:

  1. determine responsiveness; or
  2. redact and segregate as required by law.

Fees Petitions and Hourly Rate

Fee Petitions

In certain cases, state law provides the City discretion on whether to redact and segregate documents. The City’s policy is to redact and segregate documents where necessary to protect constituents’ and employees’ privacy, safety, and security. Therefore, the City will petition the Supervisor of Records to charge fees where a request requires review of at least 120 records that could not be prudently released without redaction or segregation for privacy, safety, and security purposes.

Hourly Rate

Some records must be reviewed by a lawyer or other subject matter expert, either due to ongoing litigation or the technical nature of the records. In these instances, where the request requires review of at least 120 records, the City will petition the Supervisor of Records to increase the hourly fee for completing the request. The City will seek to charge the hourly rate of the lowest paid employee qualified to conduct the review, consistent with state law.

How Fees Work

Most public records requests are for a small number of records.

When you submit a public records request, a team member will perform an initial search to determine how many responsive records the City has, if any. 

If the initial search determines that your request is more than 120 records and will require a significant amount of time to produce, we will reach out to you within 10 business days with an estimate of the fee and instructions for how to proceed. 

Fees support the continuing work of providing transparency and producing records. 

To submit a public records request please use our public records portal.

 

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