Whenever the nature, format, manner of collation or volume of a government
record embodied in the form of printed matter to be inspected, examined, or
copied pursuant to OPRA, the Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 et
seq., is such that the record cannot be reproduced by ordinary document copying
equipment in ordinary business size or involves an extraordinary expenditure
of time and effort to accommodate the request, including, but not limited
to retrieval of documents from storage or which have been archived, the Custodian
of Records, as defined by OPRA, shall advise the requester of the estimate
of charges which shall include the actual cost of duplicating the records
and a special service charge that shall be reasonable and shall be based upon
the actual direct cost of providing the copy or copies. In the event the requester
objects to the charge after having reviewed same, the Custodian of Records
shall not incur said charges until an agreement is reached between the requester
and the Custodian of Records.
In the event that an OPRA request involves the reproduction and or conversion
from the medium in which the document requested currently exists into a medium
not routinely used by the municipality or not routinely developed or maintained
by the municipality or requires a substantial amount of manipulation or programming
or information technology, the Custodian of Records shall either convert the
document to the medium requested or provide a copy in some other meaningful
medium as provided by OPRA. In the event that the requester refuses to accept
a copy in some other meaningful medium the municipality is able to convert
the documents into, the Custodian of Records shall advise the requester of
the actual cost of duplication, a special service charge that shall be reasonable
and shall be based on the cost for any extensive use of information technology
or for the labor cost of personnel providing the service that is actually
incurred by the municipality or attributable to the municipality for the programming
clerical and supervisory assistance required or both. This section shall also
apply to requests for documents which the municipality is unable to reproduce
in-house due to the document's existing unusual size or medium, including
but not limited to blueprints, plans, film, slides, CD-ROMS and the like.
The Custodian of Records is authorized to solicit and receive estimates
in accordance with local public contracts law from third-party document service
providers to effectuate OPRA requests which fall within the scope of this
chapter, and any estimates from said third-party service providers shall be
transmitted to the requester for his or her consideration and review.
The Custodian of Records is authorized to solicit and receive applications
from persons desirous of being employed on a part-time basis, at a rate to
be set forth in the salary ordinance, to aid in the fulfillment of OPRA requests
which fall within the scope of this chapter and to present same to governing
body for its review and action. A list of potential part-time employees shall
be kept by the Custodian of Records to be called upon when needed in accordance
with this chapter.
As there are certain time constraints in OPRA, the Custodian of Records
is authorized to call upon a part-time employee as needed to aid in the fulfillment
of OPRA requests which fall within the scope of this chapter. The part-time
employee hourly rate shall be included in the special services charges to
be included in the estimate of costs where applicable.
In the event that the requester of documents objects to any charges
permitted by this chapter and no resolution of the objection may be reasonably
accomplished, the Custodian of Records shall not incur any charges on behalf
of the municipality to fulfill the OPRA request.