A follow up to our May 2 post about the University of Louisville's illegal attempt to recover staff costs of $30, in addition to legally authorized actual copying costs of $2.40 (24 pages of responsive records at $0.10 per page).
After several failed attempts to reach out to university officials extending over a period of weeks, the KSU instructor and her student contacted the office of university counsel.
Although they were not permitted to speak directly with counsel, Thomas Hoy, they spoke with his self-described "triage" assistant.
The assistant advised them that Mr. Hoy and his staff were unaware of their efforts to communicate with university officials to resolve the issue.
She indicated that the student's open records request was logged into the office of general counsel on April 9 and immediately forwarded to the university's records custodian, Sherri Pawson.
She acknowledged counsel's failure to follow up on Pawson's disposition of this or any other request forwarded to her.
The inflated invoice that the KSU student received was dated April 26. That's 13 — not three — business days after receipt.
The university offered the instructor and her student no legal justification for the imposition of fees for staff costs or for the delay in responding, but their persistence paid off.
The question is: How many other open records requesters did the university improperly charge for staff time and are therefore entitled to be paid back?
