Schedule of Reasonable Charges Archives - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

Jackson Sun gets $1,600 public records bill after requesting to see accreditation emails at UT-Martin

The Jackson Sun in a Sunday editorial called for reform of the state's public records fee schedule after getting a $1,600 public records bill for copies of emails about University of Tennessee at Martin's academic probation. Jackson Sun Editor Steve Coffman When UT-Martin's administrators said they didn't have specifics about the probation, the newspaper requested to review emails to and from the college's administrative and academic leadership team on the topic. What the emails showed: UTM knew it was at risk for losing accreditation for multiple years for failing to address five specific and related standards, yet did little about it. (See story: UTM repeatedly failed to fix issues that led to probation) Getting [...]

TCOG answers state’s 5 questions on charging fees for public records

By Deborah Fisher|2016-03-10T08:51:27-06:00August 31, 2015|Categories: fees, Office of Open Records Counsel, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: Advisory Committee on Open Government, fees for public records, Office of Open Records Counsel, redactions, Schedule of Reasonable Charges|0 Comments

The Office of Open Records Counsel is posing five questions about charging fees for public records at upcoming hearings Sept. 15-17 in Knoxville, Nashville and Jackson. Open Records Counsel Ann Butterworth is gathering comments in advance of making a recommendation in January on whether the law should be changed to allow governments to charge citizens to look at public records. Following are TCOG's responses to the five questions. 1. Should the TPRA (Tennessee Public Records Act) permit record custodians to charge for inspection of public records? No. New fees would choke off citizen access to a wide swath of public records. Plain and simple, we believe that allowing government to [...]