I have been trying to obtain statistics on how Multnomah County employees functioned before and after the pandemic. I explained to the public records officer that it was research in the public's interest and not for profit. At first, they did not want to grant the request at all, claiming no such records existed. The public records officer even provided me with a link to Oregon State law. I used the link to find the very section that explains that they do in fact have to provide records even if there is no pre-existing report. From there on, the public records officer began to quote how much time it was going to take and that I would be billed. The first quote I received was $363.90. In my last email exchange yesterday, that has been increased to $2852.19! I have been attempting to negotiate my request with them for well over a week. I have revised the request several times to make it easier to accomplish, and yet the fee keeps increasing.

Here is the last version of my request:

Please provide monthly statistics in regards to the following criteria for the entire Multnomah County staff as an aggregate. The time periods requested are: 2019, 2020 (only Jan, Feb, Sept, Oct, Nov & Dec), 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024.

1. Total number of Multnomah County employees as of the 1st day of each month requested.

2. Total combined regular schedule work hours for all Multnomah County staff as of the 1st day of each month requested.

3. Total combined hours not worked on their regular schedules (that is not vacation or holiday use) for all Multnomah County staff for each month requested.

This is what they want to charge me almost $3000 to provide.

My total is slighty above that because I am going to reimburse the County staff that have spent hours preparing all the emails that have been going back and forth for several days. The public records officer informed me that they were graciously not going to bill me the $380.41 that was paid to staff helping prepare the response.