1. (a) A public agency shall prescribe, in writing, in advance of processing a request for electronic services and products, all fees for providing those services and products, and shall provide an estimate of fees to the requester.
2. (b) A public agency shall adopt a fee schedule for electronic services and products in accordance with AS 40.25.115 and this chapter.
3. (c) A public agency that has not adopted a fee schedule for electronic services and products may charge no more than the rates established by the Department of Administration and published in the "Guide to Data Center & Telecommunications Services", October, 1994. A public agency may use those rates until that public agency adopts a fee schedule.

4. (d) A public agency shall set out, in writing, the assumptions used to calculate rates and document the agency's costs and the rate formulas. A public agency shall monitor the use and costs of the data processing services used to support the building and operation of the agency's information system, and then shall bill requesters no more than their proportional use of the information system. A public agency may use federal guidelines, such as Federal Information Processing Standard 96 or a similar standard, to develop, adopt, and implement a charging system. Suggested guidelines for establishing a public agency fee schedule for electronic services and products include

   1. (1) forecasting the estimated volume of usage for each electronic service and product produced by the public agency; these usage forecasts should generally be in terms of the number of service units, including processing unit seconds, records printed, data stored, and programmer analyst hours of each data processing service to be used for a given rate period;
   2. (2) forecasting the costs of all the various resources, including hardware, software, personnel, and development and maintenance costs of the information system used to provide the electronic service or product;
   3. (3) distributing the resource costs to each of the services according to the resources required to support the service or product; and
   4. (4) determining rates by dividing the total cost of each service or product by the total estimated volume of usage.

5. (e) A public agency's fees may include the following charges associated with providing the electronic service or product:

   1. (1) processing costs, including any chargeback fees paid to another state, federal, or municipal agency or service bureau;
   2. (2) salary and benefits costs for each employee responding to and providing the electronic services and products;
   3. (3) currently published postal and freight charges;
   4. (4) costs for tapes, mailing label paper, computer paper, microfiche, disks, and other media used to provide the records; and
   5. (5) costs for providing a public terminal for on-line access to electronic information as described by 2 AAC 96.450.
6. (f) A public agency may waive the requirement for advance payment for electronic services or products upon receipt of a written agreement from the requester that establishes time frames for payment that are mutually acceptable.

7. (g) A requester for electronic services and products may request a review, consistent with AS 40.25.115(g), of a public agency's fees for those services and products. Upon request from the Office of the Governor, a public agency providing those services and products must provide the assumptions and documentation of the costs and the rate formulas used to calculate its fees for electronic services and products. In a review under this subsection,

   1. (1) a written determination and finding will be made whether the fees comply with AS 40.25.115 and this chapter; and
   2. (2) a decision will be provided to the requester and the public agency within 60 working days, explaining the determination under this subsection; that decision may include instructions to the public agency regarding fees.
8. (h) A fee reduction or an instruction provided under (g) of this section to a public agency is effective immediately, unless a later deadline is imposed or regulations are required to implement those reductions or instructions.

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

Authority: AS 40.25.110, AS 40.25.115, AS 40.25.120, AS 40.25.123