Some not eager to fork over info

Want to know how much you pay your mayor?

How about how many of your tax dollars are spent to pay your local parks and recreation director?

It's public information. Any Average Joe can walk into City Hall and ask for it. But some cities might make you pay to find out where your tax dollars are going.

The Deseret Morning News sent out 30 Government Records Access and Management Act requests to cities throughout the state for lists of city employees' salaries.

Most cities obliged and quickly faxed over the information. But a few wanted the newspaper to pay.

Cities are "encouraged" to release public information without charge under Utah's GRAMA law if the record primarily benefits the public rather than an individual.

The law further clarifies that "any person who requests a record to obtain personal information for a story or report for publication or broadcast to the general public is presumed to be acting to benefit the public rather than the person."

Yet some cities have a policy of charging a fee for every record, no matter who is asking or why.

In Draper, the City Council refused to give the salary records to the Deseret Morning News until the newspaper had paid $33.50 in labor costs for the five-page document. Although a reporter petitioned the city for a fee waiver at a City Council meeting, Draper Mayor Darrell Smith said the city would not make an exception.

"It's pretty simple. It's just been a policy to be fair with everybody," Smith said. "Regardless of who's requesting something, it's a time cost to the city to look up these records."

Draper covered that cost by charging the newspaper $30 per hour to look up records, even though the human resources employee who compiled the documents earns only $18.40 an hour. City Manager Eric Keck said that extra cost takes into account the employee's health-insurance benefits, as well as overhead items like electricity.

Utah's GRAMA law states that the hourly charge may not exceed the salary of the lowest-paid employee who has the necessary skill and training to compile the data requested.

"If Draper city said they had all these separate files, it seems hard for me to believe that they don't have a database with every salary on it in one place," said Joel Campbell, a Brigham Young University journalism professor and co-chairman of the national Society of Professional Journalists' Freedom of Information Committee.

The Draper recorder will not charge for the first 15 minutes of work spent compiling a records request, in accordance with the GRAMA law. Any time after that, however, is assessed the same $30-an-hour fee plus copy costs.