City staff previewed proposed updates to the municipal public-records ordinance that would let the city charge for the time required to review and redact law-enforcement body camera footage, and would shift the city’s fee schedule out of the code into an administrable fee schedule. The changes, discussed in committee as an initial presentation, include a proposed $50 hourly charge for video review and a statutory per-video cap of $150 noted in state law. Staff said the goal is to help the city recover direct costs of redaction and storage while working with requesters to narrow requests where possible.

Why it matters: review and redaction of law-enforcement recordings account for a large share of staff time for public-records responses, staff said. Examples offered to the committee showed that redaction can take roughly two-to-three times the run time of a recording, and some complex requests have required dozens of hours of work to produce responsive copies. The proposed change would formalize recovery of that labor cost and the ordinance would direct how the fees are deposited and used.

Staff presentation and context: a staff presenter summarized several categories of changes in the ordinance: (1) moving the fee list into a fee schedule; (2) clarifying rules about certified copies and where certification fees are deposited; (3) defining limits on bulk commercial requests for records stored in third-party electronic systems; and (4) adding minor fee schedule updates such as fingerprinting and per-page charges. The presenter said the city has had body cameras since about 2018 and that other Indiana municipalities and counties have adopted similar approaches since the state allowed charges for law-enforcement reporting.

Questions from committee members focused on who would pay the charges and which categories of people could inspect video without charge. Staff said the term "requester" is defined in state statute and that victims fall within classes that may inspect recordings without a copy charge; victims generally may inspect but not necessarily receive a free copy under current state law. Committee members asked whether prosecutors, community police review boards and nonprofit reviewers would be charged; staff said she would follow up with examples and a written list of municipalities that have adopted similar fee frameworks and the fees they use.

Staff emphasized that the city’s intake process will include working with requesters to narrow responsive footage to limit unnecessary costs, that storage costs are an additional driver of expense, and that the municipality’s proposed hourly rate of $50 is on the lower end of comparable schedules the presenter reviewed. The presentation also noted statutory constraints from the Indiana General Assembly and referenced prior public-access counselor guidance as informing the proposed language.

Next steps: staff said this presentation was for committee discussion and transparency; the ordinance will be assigned to committee and return later with the formal ordinance language, documentation of municipal comparators and a clarified intake process. No formal vote was taken during this session.