PROVO — The Provo School District Board of Education approved a policy Tuesday night establishing protocol for members of the public who want to obtain district records.

Board members themselves may still have to file a so-called GRAMA request if they want photocopies of information not requested by a majority of the board.

GRAMA is the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act, which specifies the time and manner in which public documents are released.

People seeking access to records in Provo School District must complete the district's "GRAMA Request for Records" form, which requires a signature from a notary public.

The district records officer will provide up to 10 pages of documents without charge, the policy states. For records that exceed 50 pages or for multiple requests from one person in a calendar year, the records officer can charge for the cost of copying.

The district may charge if records require more than 15 minutes of staff time to obtain. The cost will not exceed the salary of the lowest-paid employee who has the skill to perform the task, the policy says.

Only board member Sandy Packard voted against the policy. Her GRAMA request more than a month ago for financial records of all of the schools in the 13,000-student district spurred development of the measure. District business administrator Kerry Smith told Packard at the time of her request that it would cost her $250 to $450 to obtain the 3,600 pages of records. Packard later agreed to review only the records of two high schools, and she was not charged a fee.

Packard voted against the new policy after an amendment to exempt board members from having to file formal GRAMA requests was shot down.

Packard was also unhappy the policy did not state specifically how much photocopies would cost. The district said that a fixed cost prevented flexibility for situations in which they would have to travel to a copy shop or increase prices for inflation.

Packard also questioned why the district was charging for employee time. A First Amendment attorney told the Deseret Morning News last month that it was illegal to charge for staff time unless the form of the document was changed, such as a word processing document being converted to a spreadsheet.

Smith said that several attorneys opined on behalf of the district that GRAMA does, in fact, allow charging for employee time.

The policy was formed after district officials talked with a handful of school districts such as Salt Lake, Weber, Nebo and Granite, said Greg Hudnall, the district's records officer.

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com