Action News Jax Investigates: The price of public information

By Florida law, anyone has the right to get access to documents and records from our local government, including law enforcement -- but at what cost?

Action News Jax started investigating after we paid almost $2,000 for a single public records request from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

JSO also took six months to fulfill that request.

“I could not believe that this request cost $2,000,” said Action News Jax Crime and Safety Expert and former JSO officer Ken Jefferson.

JSO charged Action News Jax $1,851 for 2,079 pages on the jail’s use of restraint chairs.

Related: Action News Jax investigates JSO's use of force behind bars

JSO charged 15 cents a page -- the maximum allowed by state law.

Action News Jax found that that is standard practice among law enforcement agencies in our area and around the state.

Here’s the big difference:

JSO said it took nine hours to pull and print the documents, charging $47.89 an hour.

On top of that, the agency charged for 16 hours of reviewing and redacting at $69.27 an hour.

We checked with Putnam, Seminole, St. Johns, Clay and Columbia counties and found the total cost to pull, print and redact averages between $11.50 an hour and $15.99 an hour.

JSO’s hourly rate isn’t the same for all requests.

Last week, Action News Jax paid $17.50 an hour to pull, print and redact several public records requests.

So why the difference?

Public Information Officer Melissa Bujeda said JSO’s $17.50 an hour personnel clerk doesn’t have access to restraint chair documents, or the training to redact them.

Florida law says agencies must charge based on actual labor costs for the personnel required to complete the records request.

As for the six months to get the documents? We made the same request last week to the Orange and Seminole County Sheriff’s Offices in the Orlando area.

Both said it would take about a week and may be free of charge.

Action News Jax also requested surveillance video of the inmate who sparked our investigation, Paul Testa, from the time he arrived at the jail the morning of Dec. 21, 2015, to when he was taken to the hospital that night.

Testa had stopped breathing while strapped in a restraint chair.

JSO Public Information Officer Christian Hancock said surveillance video inside the jail is not public record.

The agency released jail surveillance video from inside intake in April, when they fired Officer Akinyemi Borisade. He was caught on camera hitting a female inmate.

Cox Media Group