Rule 31-201-3.4 - Costs for Public Records Requests Whenever possible records will be provided at little or no cost to the requestor. However, MEMA may charge reasonable fees as follows to cover retrieval and copying costs. MEMA requires that any associated cost be paid in advance of complying with a request for public records.
A. The following charges are applicable for public records requests to MEMA:i. No charge for inspection of public records.ii. $10.00 (Ten Dollars) per hour for clerical assistance.iii. $40.00 (Forty Dollars) per hour for professional and/or technical assistance.iv. $0.25 (Twenty Five Cents) per copied page. v. $0.10 (Ten Cents) per scanned page.vi. Associated delivery costs.vii. Other costs as determined due to the nature of a specific request.B. In the event that the estimated costs for production of public records requests exceeds $30.00 (Thirty Dollars) (for example approximately two hours of clerical assistance, fifteen minutes of legal assistance, and 40 paper copies or 100 electronic copies), MEMA will provide the requestor with an estimate of cost. This estimate must be paid prior to any production. If costs for actual production exceed the estimated cost paid, MEMA will produce documents up to the cost provided and will send a second invoice for the remaining cost of production. This method is employed to avoid nonpayment of charges for a public records request that has already been performed. The fulfill a public records request MEMA employees must stop work on their everyday duties of emergency management to identify, retrieve, and review public records. This method ensure that these efforts will be compensated for, especially when fulfillment of the request has been extensive and time consuming.31 Miss. Code. R. 201-3.4
Miss. Code Ann. §§ 25-61-5 & 7