The Department of Justice (DOJ) charges document copies at $0.35 per page plus the actual cost of staff time spent on copying. DOJ charges the actual cost of staff time spent working on the request, of recalling records from off-site storage, and of processing and transmitting electronic media. In contrast to other agencies, the DOJ will charge the requestor for the cost of legal review and redaction of information if that review or redaction takes the attorney longer than a half hour. Further, the DOJ will charge the requestor for document “research and/or analysis” when that process takes a DOJ employee more than a half hour. It charges email export of responsive documents at $127.78 per hour.

The Office of Public Instruction (OPI) charges document copies at $0.25 per page and allows the employee completing the request to charge her time at her regular hourly rate. OPI may waive a fee for fulfilling a request when the cost of actually preparing the invoice would exceed the estimated fee. OPI may not charge a requestor for any amount of time billed by an attorney reviewing responsive materials. Before beginning to work on a request, the Office of Public Instruction will send the requestor an invoice with an estimated fee. No information will be identified, investigated, or gathered until that preliminary fee has been paid.

The Office of the Montana State Auditor charges copies of securities records and copies for an Authorized Insurer at $0.50 per page. Any other responsive record is charged at $0.25 per page. The office charges staff time at the actual hourly cost of the employee fulfilling the request. Other supplies and services used in completing the request are charged at their actual cost to the office. The requestor will not be assessed the fee of any attorney’s review of information.

Montana’s Office of Public Information Requests (OPIR)—which handles information requests for most agencies reporting to the Governor—charges a fee for all public information requests. The Department of Administration and OPIR break down requests into categories of “simple public information requests”—those that (1) do not require further clarification from the requestor and (2) request a “single, specific, clearly identifiable and readily available public record that is easily accessible”—and “complex public information requests”—anything that is not a simple request or a request for information about a person or property that the DOA has a duty to maintain. For complex requests, the office will send a fee estimate to the requestor that must be paid within 30 days. In estimating the time that will be spent on a given request by OPIR and DOA employees, the offices take into account each employee’s “salary and benefits,” including the time the employee will likely spend on searching, identifying, and gathering the information in a preliminary search, preparing the estimated cost and time for response (to clarify, the requestor is charged for the amount of time an employee spends preparing the documents that outline how much a requestor will be charged), gathering information, reviewing information, and, finally, providing information. If the costs exceed the initial estimate, the agencies will provide an additional fee assessment. If the collected costs exceed the actual costs, the requestor will be issued a refund.

Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) charges document copies at $0.10 per page for copying, the actual cost for storage, media, postage, and mail materials, and the actual cost for retrieval of records from off-site storage. It charges the actual hourly rate of the staff member fulfilling the request. DEQ does not charge for requests under $20, requests from local, state, tribal, and federal government, requests from state or federal legislators made for legislative purposes, requests from journalists made for journalistic purposes, and requests from students with proof of current enrollment. DEQ requires the fees to be paid in advance of a requestor receiving responsive information.

The Office of the Secretary of State (SOS) does not have a policy detailing the assessment of fees for information requests. Instead, the SOS explained in an email to MTP that it “follows Title 2 Chapter 6 of the Montana Code, the Montana Administrative Rules, and the interpretation thereof, for the public information request fee schedule.” Montana’s public information fee assessment statute provides that fees assessed by the SOS must be commensurate with the overall costs of the office and must reasonably reflect the prevailing rates charged in the public and private sectors for similar services. Under Montana law, the SOS may not charge legislators for requests relating to his or her legislative duties. The law requires the fees to be collected in advance of the office sending any responsive documents.