1. (a) A public agency shall prescribe in writing the standard unit charge for copies of public records.

2. (b) The fee to search for and duplicate a public record may reflect

   1. (1) actual costs for copying the record in the requested format, including costs for paper, tapes, microfiche, disks or other media;
   2. (2) costs incurred by the agency to duplicate the record, including computer processing time; and
   3. (3) salary and benefits costs for the employees performing the work, including computer programming work required to extract or copy the records, as set out in AS 40.25.110.

3. (c) Except in the case of news organizations, fees must be paid before the records are disclosed. A public agency may require payment in advance of a search for a public record if the agency reasonably believes that the search will generate a fee under AS 40.25.110. If the request is from a news organization or an employee or agent of a news organization and the agency head reasonably believes that the requested record search will require more than five hours to complete, the public agency head may require payment in advance of the search by the news organization only when

   1. (1) the request is unreasonable or in bad faith;
   2. (2) the news organization has failed to pay for previous requests; or
   3. (3) the request requires extraordinary expenditure of state resources.
4. (d) A public agency may waive the requirement under (c) of this section for payment in advance if the requester and the public agency agree in writing to mutually acceptable time frames for payment.

(Eff. 11/6/94, Register 132)