Ablany County Courthouse recently released a set of fees that the public is required to pay in order to obtain public records.
The Albany County Commissioners office voted to add printing fees for public document requests last week. As of now, the decision has been passed by the board and is under a 30 day public comment period before it will officially go into effect.
“So when people come for public records or court documents it’s just charging them a fee for the cost of the paper that it’s printed on, we can’t go over that,” Tim Chesnut, chairman of Albany Board of Commissioners said.
The fee only applies to physical records and documents for that must be printed in order to be obtained,while digital records will still be free to for the public to request.
“We’re just charging people for the documents that we have to print out, we’re not changing anything with digital, digital will still be free,” Chesnut said.
The reason for the change is to improve budget concerns. This is not an uncommon trend happening in Wyoming right now as the state faces its own budget crisis.
“We’re in tough budget times right now like the rest of the state so we’re just trying to save money where we can and the state allows it by statute,” Chesnut said. “You can’t make money off of it but you can recoup the money that you spent,”
According to the Albany County website, there will still be a $5.00 fee charged when searching for documents at the Clerks office, in addition to the now 65 cents per page for regular copies of documents which also have a minimum charge of $1.25.
For certified copies of documents, there is a fee of $1.25 per page and a minimum charge of $5.00. The certified copies come with a signed statement and a raised seal from the County Clerks office to verify that it is an official copy.
The specific date is yet to be released but the fees will be officially applied in May at the Albany County Courthouse.
