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Administrative Policy Manual

APM 4-11: PUBLIC RECORDS

Purpose The purpose of this Administrative Policy Manual (APM) is to establish theprocedures em ployees of the City of Miami are to follow in order to ensurecompliance with Public Records law under Florida Statute Chapter 119 and toestablish a unifolun policy on providing access to public records to requestingparties.

Definition Public Records are: "all documents, paper, letters, maps, boobs, tapes,

photographs, sound recordings, data processing software, or other material,

regardless of the physical form, characteristics, or means or transmission,

made of receive pursuant to law of ordinance or in connection with the

transaction of official business by any agency." 1

Policy Public Records may be inspected and copied by any person desiring to do so,at any reasonable time, under reasonable conditions, and under departmentalsupervision. Each Department shall designate a Public Records Liaison,

preferable the already designated Records Custodian for each Department.The Public Records Liaison must acknowledge receipt of Public Records

Requests in a timely manner to the requesting party. Public Records will beprovided within a reasonable time frame. Public Records Requests w ill bereceived during the City department's normal business hours.

Procedures In the event a Public Records Request is received that involves multiple

departments, the Office of Communications shall be the lead department

addressing the request and the Public Records Liaison for each Departmentshall work with the Office of Com munications. All public records requestsand responses involving more than one department must be forwarded to thePublic Records Coordinator. The O ffice of Comm unications will act as thePublic Records Coordinator for the City of Miami.

Each City departmen t shall designate a Public Records Liaison to coordinatethe retrieval and review of public records related to that department. Any

employee receiving a Public Records Request is required to acknowledgereceipt of said request, and complete the Records Request Form, and

immediately forward it to the department's Public R ecords Liaison, who shall

1Fla Stat *119.11



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then notify the Office of Communications, by email, that the request wasreceived. If the requesting party wishes to remain anonymous, the employeewill complete the Records Request Fonn by stating the following:

"unknown." It is not mandatory that the public records request be in writing,but the City em ployee receiving the requ est shall fill out ht form to assist inmaking sure that both the employee and the requesting party understand therequest.

Fees Fees will be assessed pursuant to applicable law to individuals making PublicRecords Requests. The Public Records Liaison must quote the fee to be

assessed to the individual making the P ublic Records R equest. The personmaking the request must pay that amount to the C ashier's Office on the 4th

floor of the Miami Riverside Center (MR C) building and receive a receiptprior to receiving the records. Once the receipt is presented to the PublicRecords Liaison for the records, the records can be released to the requestingparty.

The Public Records L iaison is authorized to charge a fee up to 15 c ents perone-sided copy for copies that are 14 inches by 8 1/2 inches of less .2 Anagency may charge no more than an additional 5 cents for each two-sided

duplicated copy.3

If no fee is prescribed in the Statute, then it shall be theactual cost of duplication. "Duplicating" means "the process of reproducingan image or images from an original to a final substrate through the

electrophotographic, xenographic, laser, or offset process or any combinationof these processes, by which an operator can make more than one copy

without rehandling the original." 4

The City Manager has established an "extensive clerical or supervisory

assistance" fee as allowed per Florida Statutes if "extensive clerical or

supervisory assistance by personnel of the agency involved." 5 This"extensive clerical or supervisory assistance: is in addition to the "extensiveuse of technology resources" ("extensive research") fee currently charged. 6

The "extensive clerical or supervisory assistance" will be imposed during thesearch for the records requested, when technology is not involved. It will alsobe imposed then a citizen or individual requesting records is searching forrecords themselves or reviewing the records provided, while in the presenceof a C ity employee who is supervising the search and ensuring that the citizenwill no misplace or lose any of the public records. This fee will also coverany forma tting or video assistance that is involved in processing the PublicRecords Request.

2 FIa Stat § 119.07(4)(a)(1)3

Fla Stat § 119.07(4)(a)(2)4 Fla Stat §283.30(3)

5 Fla Stat § 119.07(4)(d)

6 §2-142(e). Miami City Code

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Policy Number: APM 441

Date: j — Zl, -

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REVISIONSREVISED DATE OF

SECTION REVISION

Created 08/29/2011

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apm 4-11 public records

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