Written by: Christopher J. Vidrine

On June 9, 2023, Governor Edwards signed Act No. 247 of the 2023 Regular Session which relates to the costs for public records. The Act seeks to address a previously unanswered question on the allowed fees associated with public records requests in Louisiana’s public records law. The Act will become effective on August 1, 2023.

Louisiana Revised Statute 44:32(C) provides that custodians of public records may charge copying fees for the production of public records pursuant to a public records request (“PRR”). For state agencies, those fees are set according to a uniform fee schedule established by the Commission of Administration.[1] The fee schedule can be found in Section 301 of Title 4 of the Louisiana Administrative Code.[2] However, for non-state agencies (which includes Hospital Service Districts), the statute only provides that “[t]he custodian may establish and collect reasonable fees for making copies of public records.”[3]

This necessarily introduces the question: What constitutes a reasonable fee?