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UnderYetOverJ.K. Trotter
1/15/16 2:14pm
an additional 60% (or 114 hours) will be required to copy the footage in a manner that will redact the exempt portions of the [body camera footage]

“We have to charge extra to take out the parts you want to see!”
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  Hip Brooklyn StereotypeUnderYetOver
  1/15/16 2:16pm
  Exactly.
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  KomradKickassUnderYetOver
  1/15/16 2:18pm
  A presume this would be editing out personal/private information caught on body cams.
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Frankenbike666J.K. Trotter
1/15/16 2:29pm
The hourly charge includes overhead. Which includes all of the material charges of the agency, divided up according to some formula in ratio to the officer’s salary. Or, divided up equally among all employees, with the salary added to averaged out cost. It is also, generally, a gross figure used to calculate hourly charges outside the agency, or to discourage unwanted projects by inflating the cost of those projects.

The question here is this: is providing footage from an FOIA request, a public duty? If it is, then the cost of these requests should be borne by the law enforcement agency and ultimately the taxpayers who benefit from transparency. And if that is the case, the agency would be forced to use the most efficient means of retrieval at the lowest cost, rather than the most inefficient means using the most inflated charges possible in order to discourage FOIA requests.
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  KomradKickassFrankenbike666
  1/15/16 2:35pm
  At the same time, if part 2 is true, you could bankrupt a policeforce/city bay requesting all the footage for the past 3 months from like 10 officers.
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  burner362Frankenbike666
  1/15/16 3:16pm
  NY1/TWC is a multi-billion dollars company. It’s profit was about $2 billions in 2013. Why should taxpayers subsidize them in their quest for rating/clicks?
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justahappylittlekittyJ.K. Trotter
1/15/16 2:14pm
The cost per hour is not going to be just salary. It will be yearly compensation plus yearly benefits plus an admin load, divided by total hours per year.

In Los Angeles, for example, base salary is something like $55,000, plus a benefits load of about $40,000, plus an admin load of 10%, plus management costs. Management costs can either by broken down and separately billed, or incorporated into admin load and add another 10-15% depending on grade level.

So $120/hour seems high, but not by much.
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  pedal-forcejustahappylittlekitty
  1/15/16 2:25pm
  My first thought as well, that the loaded rate could actually be $120. It’s not uncommon for the rate to be double the actual hourly pay, at least when just ballparking numbers. But then I did the math, and there’s no way they’re making $60/hour. It’s more like $30/hour, and even with insane pension and healthcare costs, there’s just no way the loaded rate is a full four times their take home.
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  tommystickspedal-force
  1/15/16 2:31pm
  If they’re charging $120/hr loaded rate, they’re including an allocation of fixed costs in the policeman’s salary. Since those cost are fixed, they shouldn’t be charged for an incremental activity.
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skefflesJ.K. Trotter
1/15/16 3:14pm
How dare they charge us. They are public servants. Their equipment is public property. The public is asking for them to produce something we already own, paid in full through taxation already, and delivered by someone we already pay.
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  Poopsiesskeffles
  1/15/16 3:28pm
  This price is too high. Are we clear on my opinion on that?
  
  However, free access to public records is expensive. Are you willing to support the raise in taxes needed to provide this free access which you demand?
  I work for a public archives. You would be amazed by how many people NEED(!) a record, but are unwilling to pay 50 cents to get it. If this information was provided for free the amount of staffing needed would create a budget that would cause even reasonable people to want to occupy a National Wildlife Refuge.
  
  One of the values I hold dearly in my profession is providing as much access to public records to as many people as possible. It will sound counter-intuitive...but placing fees on this stuff actually helps provide more access to more people.
  If I had to spend all day working on free requests for people who are bored or paranoid or both, for example, I would be able to spend 0 hours digitizing records and making them available online (for free). I would spend no time creating tools that make researching public records easier.
  
  I get it. Everyone wants everything for free. But you’ve got to realize, just because its free for you...doesn’t mean it actually costs nothing.
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  Poopsiesskeffles
  1/15/16 3:47pm
  Ps- If you lived in my area and made $100,000 last year...you paid me 7 cents last year (and that’s if 100% of your tax contribution went to my salary).
  Perhaps you need to re-evaluate what you are owed vs. the contribution you have made.
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OpenSourceDWORDJ.K. Trotter
1/15/16 3:13pm
(a) the lowest levels of the NYPD make $120/hr aka. $240K/year? Even cutting that by half to account for internal costs, it seems like nobody in the NYPD can ever complain about pay again.

(b) if they have to charge for someone to review the footage in the first place, is it safe to assume nobody is reviewing the footage already?

(c) it’s a bit dubious that the NYPD would be selecting what footage it provides, and what footage it hides. so much for transparency.
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  zhadumcomOpenSourceDWORD
  1/15/16 4:12pm
  a. That is not the lowest levels of the NYPD - that is the lowest level that has the needed training/skills to be able to determine if the information in a given video is subject to FOIA requests or if it must be redacted.
  
  b. Just because they have likely reviewed the footage for their own purposes does not mean that they were looking at that footage for the purposes of determining if the footage is subject to a FOIA request.
  
  c. Then talk to the Federal government, because the Freedom Of Information Act specifically says that the agency has to determine if the information is in one of the exemptions. (Check out the FOIA.gov’s FAQ for a list of items that they are not supposed to provide in a FOIA response)
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  OpenSourceDWORDzhadumcom
  1/15/16 4:47pm
  (a) You’re right. It’s not the lowest paid employee, but by quotation, the lowest paid employee at the rank of “police officer”. So the lowest paid “police officer” makes $120K / year. No NYPD “police officer” ever has the right to complain about pay ever again. Other employee ranks below “police officer” may complain away.
  
  (b) & (c) Bullshit status quo deflection responses. It’s not that hard to have a system where body cameras are checked in and out, go to a central repository where footage is reviewed, marked, and archived as required. The technical skills to do this are infantile, and the software systems already exist. If this isn’t happening already, and instead someone thought “we’ll just buy some gopros and slap them on officers, problem fixed!” - that someone should be fired.
  
  An FOIA request should just be a subset of data pulled from a database of data that is already being collected and organized. Data that has flags whether or not it is acceptable for FOIA transfer; pulled from a data system that has embedded accountability.
  
  Clearly the NYPD either doesn’t want to share information (something to hide), or they’re too incompetent to effectively use tax payer dollars and need better public oversight.
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zombiepandaJ.K. Trotter
1/15/16 3:25pm
My SO is a GIS analyst. He was making a map of LI and FOIL’d Suffolk County for their tax lot data. They wanted $6K because it’s COPYRIGHTED. Some asshole appellate judge decided that the freedom of information ain’t free. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit…

Lawyers: Any possible way to get around this bs?
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  Redzombiepanda
  1/15/16 6:59pm
  You do realize that even mediocre legal counsel starts at $300 an hour right?
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  zombiepandaRed
  1/15/16 7:10pm
  You do realize that this is an a story on Gawker, right?
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Mew-Tang-ClanJ.K. Trotter
1/15/16 2:15pm
35,999 dollars of the fee is just to get the police to put down their donut and get their other hand off the trigger already aiming at a minority. The last 100 pennies go to copying the digital file onto a flash drive.
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BulfrightJ.K. Trotter
1/15/16 2:15pm
$120/hr may not be inaccurate given the lifetime pension and healthcare liabilities for each sworn officer. (And the apparent penchant of some in the ranks for going out on trumped-up 3/4 disability)

Still a BS obstruction tactic though - you could get a non-P.O. to do this work for a fraction of the cost.
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AnnieW50J.K. Trotter
1/15/16 2:11pm
Oh, no, nothing to see here, just a simple fee so only the “right” people will have access.
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WhatthefoxsaysJ.K. Trotter
1/15/16 2:25pm
The NYPD is either stupid or hiding something. Likely both. The tactic of charging exorbitant fees for freedom of information material in order to prevent or postpone disclosure has been tried, and FAILED, in numerous jurisdictions around the country. I expect the courts in NY to do the same.
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