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STATE OF WASHINGTON
County of Jefferson
In the Matter of Revising the Jefferson)
County Public Records Compliance Policy)) RESOLUTION NO. 68 21
to Eliminate Separate Charges for)
Attachments to Produced Emails ) W
WHEREAS,Chapter 42.56 RCW,the Washington Public Records Act requires that public
agencies publish rules to provide public access to public records; and,
WHEREAS, in furtherance of the requirements of Chapter 42.56 RCW, Jefferson County
adopted Resolution 21-18 on May 29, 2018, which adopted the Jefferson County Public Records
Act Compliance Policy (Policy); and,
WHEREAS, the County's experience since 2018 has resulted in the conclusion that in
order to improve staff efficiency and increase customer satisfaction in how Public Records Act
requests are processed, the Policy's requirement that individual emails and their attachments be
counted as separate files should be changed so that files containing multiple emails and
attachments should be counted as one file; and,
WHEREAS,the change in the Policy will not result in a significant change in revenue for
records reduced, but will save staff time in processing Public Records Act requests, and,
NOW, THEREFORE, the County Commissioners of Jefferson County resolve that the
Policy should be modified as in ATTACHMENT "A"to this Resolution.
Section 1. Amending the Policy. The changes identified in ATTACHMENT "A" to this
Resolution are hereby adopted. Specifically, Section 10.4.1 of the Policy, which says, "For the
avoidance of doubt, the term "electronic file", as used in RCW 42.56.120(2)(b)(iii) for emails,
means each discrete email and each discrete attachment to an email." shall be deleted from the
Policy.
Section 2. Findings. The County Commissioners hereby adopt the above recitals (the
"WHEREAS" statements) as its findings of fact in support of this Resolution.
Section 3. Severability. The provisions of this Resolution are declared separate and
severable. If any provision of this Resolution or its application to any person or circumstances is
held invalid,then the remainder of this Resolution or application of its provisions to other persons
or circumstances shall remain valid and unaffected.
Section 4. SEPA Compliance. This Resolution is categorically exempt from the State
Environmental Policy Act under WAC 197-11-800(19).
1. Section 5. Effective Date. This Resolution is effective immediately upon adoption.
(SIGNATURES FOLLOW ON NEXT PAGE)
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APPROVED and ADOPTED this 22 day of {/IN er , 2021.
A JEFFERSON COUNTY BOARD OF
COMMISS RS
Kate r
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•
ATTEST'. Gre therton,�Member
Carolyn GWIloway uDate Heidi Eisenhour, Member
Clerk of the Board
Approved as toform only:
t/ 'C• /114' I/3 �oz
Philip C. Hunsucker ate
Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney
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ATTACHMENT A
Jefferson County Public Records Act Compliance Policy Page 32 of 36
9.5 Final Decision, If Affirmed.
If the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney's Office affirms the decision, the
decision shall be considered Jefferson County's final action for the purposes of
judicial review. Administrative remedies shall not be considered exhausted until
the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has made a written decision,or
until the close of the second business day following receipt of the written petition
for review,whichever occurs first.
10.0 Costs for Public Records
The costs for public records has been set by Jefferson County Ordinance No. 02-0514-18. The
requirements of Jefferson County Ordinance No. 02-0514-18 are repeated below for purposes of
convenience.
10.1 Inspection Only.
There is no charge for inspection of records.
10.2 Records Already on Jefferson County Website.
Jefferson County will not charge any costs for access to or downloading of records
that it posts on Jefferson County's website prior to receipt of a request, unless the
requestor has specifically requested that Jefferson County provide copies of these
records through other means.
10.3 Statutory Basis.
Fees for the provision of responsive records will be in accordance with RC W
42.56.120.
10.4 Calculation of Costs.
Except as stated below, Jefferson County has determined that the calculation of
actual costs it charges for providing records would be unduly burdensome. Due to
limited staffing resources such a study would interfere with other essential agency
functions. Therefore, to implement a cost schedule consistent with the Public
Records Act, it is more cost efficient, expeditious and in the public interest for
Jefferson County to adopt the state legislature's approved fees and costs for most
of Jefferson County's records, as authorized in RCW 42.56.120 and as published
in the Jefferson County Public Records Request Cost Schedule.These fees shall go
into effect immediately upon approval and apply to all pending Public Records Act
requests.
10.1.1 For the avoidance of doubt, the tcrm "clectronic file", as used in RC W
12 56 i 2n(2vtiv:::) f r o ails ch d sort*o ai an o ch discrete
attachment to an email.
JEFFERSON COUNTY
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
AGENDA REQUEST
TO: Board of County Commissioners
FROM: Ken Hugoniot,Public Records Administrator
Mark McCauley, Public Records Officer
DATE: November 22,2021
RE: Adoption of a Resolution amending the Jefferson County Public Records Act
Compliance Policy.
Adoption of an Ordinance amending the Jefferson County Public Records Request Cost
Schedule.
STATEMENT OF ISSUE:
To improve staff efficiency in processing public records and allow more timely access by the
public to county email records, staff recommends that the Board of County Commissioners
approve a resolution amending the Jefferson County Public Records Act Compliance Policy
(JCPRACP) adopted by Resolution 21-18, by removal of policy section 10.4.1. Staff also
recommends that the Board of County Commissioners approve an ordinance amending JCC
2.25.020(4)(a) as well as the Jefferson County Public Records Request Cost Schedule. The two
amendments would remove identical language from each of the JCPRACP,the Jefferson County
Code, and the public record request cost schedule, as quoted below:
For the avoidance of doubt, the term "electronic file", as used in RCW
42.56.120(2)(b)(iii)for emails, means each discrete email and each discrete attachment
to an email.
ANALYSIS:
Charging for each discrete email and each discrete attachment is an inefficient use of staff time
and can also delay the availability of records for requesters. For many requests, hundreds or
thousands of responsive emails are located. Such requests pose a few time-consuming hurdles.
Attachments are difficult to count because, first, there is ambiguity as to what actually counts as
an attachment and second, the county's email processing tools provide no automatic counts of
attachments, so they must be manually tallied. The county also tries to avoid charging requesters
for duplicate emails. There is no reliable process for deduplication in the archive, so removal of
duplicates must also be done manually. Finally, many requests contain enough ambiguity that
they require the county to provide large numbers of emails that the requester may or may not
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want, but which the countychooses toprovide in order to be sure that the requester has access to
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all of the emails which they may actually want to inspect. Public records requesters would be
better-served by not having to pay for records which are borderline responsive and which they
may not have intentionally asked for. Removing the sentence quoted above solves all these
problems because it gives the County the ability to group emails and charge for only one file
containing a number of emails.
FISCAL IMPACT:
Fees for email records are minimal and the county recoups no more than $1,000 per year of
revenue to offset the much larger efficiency costs of employee time spent in estimating and
calculating the fees themselves.
RECOMMENDATION:
Adopt the Ordinance amending the Jefferson County Code and adopt the Resolution amending
the Jefferson County Public Records Act Compliance Policy.
DEPARTMENT CONTACTS:
Ken Hugoniot, Public Records Administrator at Extension 174.
REV WED BY:
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Mark Mc ley, Interim County Adm. rator Date
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