UPDATE 11:31 AM 11/7/2012
I have received this from TriMet regarding the waiver on releasing the citation data:
Mr. Jensen:
Regarding fee waivers: TriMet may reduce or waive fees if doing so is in the public interest because making the records available primarily benefits the general public. In order to have a request for waiver considered the requestor should, but is not required to provide a statement about how the release of the records affects the community or society as a whole in contrast to a concern or interest of a private individual or entity. All requests are evaluated on the circumstances as a whole, including the burden to TriMet in locating or preparing the records.
Based upon the information you provided, TriMet has decided to exercise its discretion and deny your request for a fee waiver in this instance.
I will be filing a claim with the Attorney General’s office.
A few days ago, I sent in a request for records on the number of citations that were handed out. I wanted them by breakdown by car, bike, and pedestrian. I was told in a nicely formatted email, this was not available.
Mr. Jensen:
We have received your November 1, 2012 request for inspection of public records.
TriMet does not possess the requested records since we do not track citations by vehicle type (car, bike, person). However, we do have a report that we could run, which would provide the number and type of citations within a specified date range. Would you be interested in obtaining this report? If so, please let me know and also confirm that you are only interested in citations (and not exclusions and/or warnings).
Please let me know if you would like to amend your request. Otherwise, I will go ahead and close it out.
Thank you,
Kimberlee Akimoto
Records Analyst
This came as a surprise to me. After continuing this process, I found out today, that getting this information would cost me.
So let me get this straight: For 0.25 hours of work, I have to pay $10.78. Lets multiply that by 4 to make a full hour, and you get $43.12 an hour for public records. Multiply that by 8 (one full day) and you get $344.96. Take that and multiply that by 5 (5 days average per work week) and you get $1,724.80. Multiply that again by 52 (52 weeks in a year), and we find out that TriMet is paying $89,689.60 a YEAR to look up public records. TALK ABOUT A WASTE OF MONEY!
Would you agree, Mr. McFarlane?
I am requesting a waiver of fees. I’ll keep this post updated as things unfold.
Your math is right on, it costs about $89,689.60 to hire one person full time with benefits.
“State and local government employers spent an average of $41.56 per hour worked for employee compensation in September 2012. Wages and salaries averaged $26.91 per hour and accounted for 64.7 percent of compensation costs, while benefits averaged $14.65 per hour worked and accounted for the remaining 35.3 percent”
- http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf