§ 286.29 - Collection of fees and fee rates.

§ 286.29 Collection of fees and fee rates.

(a) Collection of fees. Collection of fees will be made at the time of providing the documents to the requester or recipient when the requester specifically states that the costs involved shall be acceptable or acceptable up to a specified limit that covers the anticipated costs. Collection of fees may not be made in advance unless the requester has failed to pay previously assessed fees within 30 calendar days from the date of the billing by the DoD Component, or the Component has determined that the fee will be in excess of $250 (see § 286.28(e)).

(b) Search time -

(1) Manual search.

Type	Grade	Hourly Rate
Clerical	E1-E9/GS1-GS8	$20.00
Professional	O1-O6/GS9-GS15	44.00
Executive	ES1-ES6/O7-O10	75.00
Contractor		44.00

(2) Computer search. Fee assessments for computer search consists of two parts; individual time (hereafter referred to as human time), and machine time.

(i) Human time. Human time is all the time spent by humans performing the necessary tasks to prepare the job for a machine to execute the run command. If execution of a run requires monitoring by a human, that human time may be also assessed as computer search. The terms “programmer/operator” shall not be limited to the traditional programmers or operators. Rather, the terms shall be interpreted in their broadest sense to incorporate any human involved in performing the computer job (e.g. technician, administrative support, operator, programmer, database administrator, or action officer).

(ii) Machine time. Machine time involves only direct costs of the Central Processing Unit (CPU), input/output devices, and memory capacity used in the actual computer configuration. Only this CPU rate shall be charged. No other machine related costs shall be charged. In situations where the capability does not exist to calculate CPU time, no machine costs can be passed on to the requester. When CPU calculations are not available, only human time costs shall be assessed to requesters. Should DoD Components lease computers, the services charged by the lessor shall not be passed to the requester under the FOIA.

(c) Duplication.

Type	Cost per Page (cents)
Pre-Printed material	02
Office copy	15
Microfiche	25
Computer copies (tapes, discs or printouts)	Actual cost of duplicating the tape, disc or printout (includes operator's time and cost of the medium)

(d) Review time (in the case of commercial requesters).

Type	Grade	Hourly Rate
Clerical	E1-E9/GS1-GS8	$20.00
Professional	O1-O6/GS9-GS15	44.00
Executive	ES1-ES6/O7-O10	75.00
Contractor		44.00

(e) Audiovisual documentary materials. Search costs are computed as for any other record. Duplication cost is the actual direct cost of reproducing the material, including the wage of the person doing the work. Audiovisual materials provided to a requester need not be in reproducible format or quality.

(f) Other records. Direct search and duplication cost for any record not described in this section shall be computed in the manner described for audiovisual documentary material.

(g) Costs for special services. Complying with requests for special services is at the discretion of the Components. Neither the FOIA, nor its fee structure cover these kinds of services. Therefore, Components may recover the costs of special services requested by the requester after agreement has been obtained in writing from the requester to pay for one or more of the following services:

(1) Certifying that records are true copies.

(2) Sending records by special methods such as express mail, etc.

[63 FR 65420, Nov. 25, 1998, as amended at 67 FR 31128, May 9, 2002]