An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Right To Know Advisory Committee Concerning Time Estimates for Responding to Public Records Requests
Maine Legislature, Session 131, LD 1208
Committee: Judiciary
Amends: 1 MRSA §408-A

Legislative Document
No. 1208
H.P. 768
House of Representatives, March 16, 2023
An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Right To Know 
Advisory Committee Concerning Time Estimates for Responding to 
Public Records Requests
Reported by Representative MOONEN of Portland for the Joint Standing Committee on 
Judiciary pursuant to the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 1, section 411, subsection 6, paragraph 
G.
Reference to the Committee on Judiciary suggested and ordered printed pursuant to Joint 
Rule 218.
ROBERT B. HUNT
Clerk
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1.  1 MRSA §408-A, sub-§3, as amended by PL 2015, c. 317, §1, is further 
amended to read:
3.  Acknowledgment; clarification; time estimate; cost estimate.  The agency or 
official having custody or control of a public record shall acknowledge receipt of a request 
made according to this section within 5 working days of receiving the request and may 
request clarification concerning which public record or public records are being requested.  
Within a reasonable time of receiving the request, the agency or official shall provide a 
good faith, nonbinding estimate of the time frame within which the agency or official will 
comply with the request, as well as and a cost estimate as provided in subsection 9.  The 
agency or official shall make a good faith effort to fully respond to the request within the 
estimated time frame.  For purposes of this subsection, the date a request is received is the 
date a sufficient description of the public record is received by the agency or official at the 
office responsible for maintaining the public record.  An agency or official that receives a 
request for a public record that is maintained by that agency but is not maintained by the 
office that received the request shall forward the request to the office of the agency or 
official that maintains the record, without willful delay, and shall notify the requester that 
the request has been forwarded and that the office to which the request has been forwarded 
will acknowledge receipt within 5 working days of receiving the request.
Sec. 2.  1 MRSA §408-A, sub-§8, ¶B, as amended by PL 2021, c. 375, §1, is further 
amended to read:
B.  The agency or official may charge a fee to cover for the actual cost of time spent 
searching for, retrieving and compiling the requested public record in accordance with 
this paragraph. Compiling the public record includes reviewing and redacting 
confidential information.
(1)  The agency or official may not charge a fee for the first 2 hours of staff time 
per request.
(2)  After the first 2 hours of staff time, the agency or official may charge a fee of 
not more than $25 per hour.
Sec. 3.  1 MRSA §408-A, sub-§9, as enacted by PL 2011, c. 662, §5, is amended 
to read:
9.  Estimate.  The agency or official having custody or control of a public record 
subject to a request under this section shall provide to the requester an estimate of the time 
necessary to complete frame within which the agency or official will comply with the 
request and of the total cost as provided by subsection 8.  If the estimate of the total cost is 
greater than $30 $50, the agency or official shall inform the requester before proceeding.  
If the estimate of the total cost is greater than $100, subsection 10 applies.
SUMMARY
This bill implements the recommendations of the Right To Know Advisory Committee 
to amend provisions in the Freedom of Access Act concerning time estimates for 
responding to public records requests by:
1.  Clarifying that an agency or official must specify the estimated time frame within 
which an agency or official will comply with a request for public records; and 
2.  Clarifying statutory language to better describe the scope of the fee charged by an 
agency or official for searching for, retrieving and compiling a requested public record. 
The bill also increases the cost threshold for when an agency or official must inform a 
requester of the estimate of the total cost before proceeding with a request for public 
records.  Under current law, an estimate of the total cost is required when the cost is 
estimated to be greater than $30. The bill requires an estimate of the total cost to be 
provided when the cost is estimated to be greater than $50, to be consistent with Public 
Law 2021, chapter 375, which increased the hourly fee for staff time that may be charged 
by an agency or official from $15 to $25.