A six-figure fee for public records?

So have you heard the one about the guy who made a public records request to the Linn-Mar school district and officials told him it would cost $604,000?

It’s no joke.

Randy Evans, who leads Iowa’s Freedom of Information Council, explained the details in a column published this week in the Des Moines Register and The Iowa Standard. The Iowa Standard is a conservative online political news site owned by Jacob Hall.

Hall, Evans wrote, requested emails and text messages from district teachers and staff that discuss Transgender Awareness Week. The district informed him that searching, pulling and reviewing those messages would cost an estimated $604,000.

Iowa’s open records law, as Evans notes, permits, but does not require, the stewards of public documents to charge a reasonable fee for providing them to the public. This fee is not reasonable.

As a journalist, I’m appalled. As a parent and taxpayer in the Linn-Mar district, I’m double-appalled.

In an email, Kevin Fry, Linn-Mar’s communications director, told me five days of emails from 1,200 employees adds up to 290,000 messages. The district would then have to review the emails to make sure they contain no student or personnel information. An attorney would be involved.

The vetting is important, I agree. But $604,000?

“That is a preliminary estimate … we are working with the requestor to possibly narrow the search to a specific time range or provide key terms, reducing the costs involved,” Fry wrote.

Even a 50 percent off sale would be pretty pricey. Another explanation could be the district doesn’t want to provide records that could fuel negative news coverage.

Transgender Awareness Week at Linn-Mar High School made news last month. Some of the signs and posters put up to celebrate the week by the school’s Spectrum Club were torn down by fellow students who didn’t like the school-sanctioned effort to make all students feel safe and welcome at school. At one point, students staged a walkout. My kid was among those who walked out in solidarity with her LGBTQ classmates.

I’m not a fan of Hall’s brand of journalism, and I’m unlikely to appreciate whatever story results from accessing these emails. But that can’t matter.

If Linn-Mar can stonewall Hall, they can obstruct anyone. Every member of the public has the same legal right to access public records. And no one should have to pay outrageous fees, let alone a six-figure bill.

News organizations with resources shouldn’t be the only ones who can access expensive records. Although at $604,000 I don’t know of many news outlets that could pay that bill.

Linn-Mar is a steward of public information. It’s a duty they take on as a publicly funded institution. The district clearly needs to put a much better process in place for providing that information to the public. Avoiding news coverage school officials don’t like should not figure in the equation.

This isn’t a new problem. And Evans argues the Legislature should address the issue of high fees for records requests. I agree. And maybe the plight of a conservative writer will push the Republican-controlled Statehouse to act. They now have 604,000 good reasons to do so.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com