Bill > HB0903

This bill modifies Tennessee's open records law to allow governmental entities to charge fees for public records requests that take more than one hour to collect. Specifically, the bill permits records custodians to charge a fee proportional to the employee's hourly rate for time spent gathering records beyond the first hour. Under the new provision, there will be no charge for the initial hour of work on a records request, but subsequent hours can be billed at a rate equivalent to the collecting employee's pay rate. The bill amends Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 10-7-503, by adding language that gives governmental entities more flexibility in recovering administrative costs associated with processing extensive public records requests. This change aims to balance the public's right to access government documents with the administrative burden of fulfilling complex or time-consuming information requests. The bill will take effect immediately upon becoming law, as determined by the Tennessee General Assembly.