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| Information |
| TITLE: |
| Consideration and Adoption of Ordinance No. 2024-02: An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Flagstaff, amending the Flagstaff City Code, Title 3 Business Regulations, Chapter 3-10 User Fees, Section 3-10-001-0004 Police Department to revise existing fees and add a new fee for Body Camera Video Review and Redaction; providing for penalties, repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, providing for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date |
| STAFF RECOMMENDED ACTION: |
1) Read Ordinance No. 2024-02 by title only for the final time
2) City Clerk reads Ordinance No. 2024-02 by title only (if approved above)
3) Adopt Ordinance No. 2024-02
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| Executive Summary: |
The Arizona State Legislature adopted a new law, A.R.S. § 39-129 that went into effect on October 30, 2023. This new law allows City’s to impose a fee for the reviewing and redacting of body camera videos when requested under a public records request.
Prior to the enactment of § 39-129, local law enforcement agencies were prohibited from charging fees for the reviewing and redacting of body camera footage when requests were made under public records law. The new statute sets the maximum amount for the hourly fee at $46.00 per hour. The Flagstaff Police Department is requesting the hourly fee be set at the maximum of $46.00 per hour.
In addition, we are updating the language formerly titled Copies of Tapes to Digital Media to support multiple ways the City can provide the information to the requestor. |
| Financial Impact: |
| The new fee for Body Camera Video Review and Redaction will provide additional revenues to the City's General Fund for services provided. Staff spent over 200 hours redacting videos from July 2022 to July 2023. At this level of service, the City would collect over $9,200 in revenue for the service. This is not the full cost of the service provided as the State of Arizona has placed a maximum of $46.00 per hour. |
| Policy Impact: |
| The City Council is currently considering a Citywide Cost Recovery Policy. A service like this is generally more aligned with an Individual Benefit and the fee would be considered between 80-100% of the service cost. |
| Connection to PBB Priorities/Objectives, Carbon Neutrality Plan & Regional Plan: |
Priority Based Budget Key Community Priorities and Objectives
High Performing Governance: Maintain the organization’s fiscal stability through strong financial policies and best practices.
Regional Plan
Goal PF.3. Provide high-quality emergency response and public safety services including law enforcement, fire, medical, and ambulance transport service. |
| Has There Been Previous Council Decision on This: |
| No. |
| Options and Alternatives: |
- Adopt the Ordinance as recommended by staff.
- Amend the Ordinance for an amount below the $42.00 per hour maximum rate.
- Do not adopt the Ordinance and continue to provide this service for only the cost of the digital media fee.
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| Background and History: |
The Arizona State Legislature adopted a new law, A.R.S. § 39-129 that goes into effect on October 30, 2023. This new law allows Cities to impose a fee for the reviewing and redacting of body camera videos when the footage is requested under a public records law. Prior to the enactment of § 39-129, local law enforcement agencies were prohibited from charging fees for the reviewing and redacting of body camera footage when requests were made under public records law. The new statute sets the maximum amount for the hourly fee at $46.00 per hour.
In the last fiscal year from July 2022 to June 2023, the Flagstaff Police Department received approximately 136 public records requests involving body camera videos. The number of videos can vary per each request. Each officer involved in an incident usually is recording, therefore the more officers who are present the more videos there are to review. Some reports can contain one video, and some can contain 10 or more videos. The length of the videos can also vary from 10 to 30 minutes to up to over an hour of footage. One request can take 30 minutes to an hour to review while others can take over 10 hours to review. Of those 136 requests the time it took just to review to the videos to determine what should be redacted took over 200 hours (this is just reviewing time and does not including the time it takes to redact and download the videos).
A request is made by the public either online or in person at the records counter for video connected to a particular report, investigation or contact with law enforcement. The request may sometimes ask for all reports and videos involving certain people as well. That request is processed by the records department and then forwarded to the legal advisor for initial review of the videos.
Legal does the initial review as the decision on what can legally be redacted is based upon public records law, including statutes and case law that needs to be interpreted and applied to each individual case. If there is a challenge to what has been redacted the requestor can file an action in court against the City claiming the City improperly withheld public information. Once the initial review is conducted then a list of legally defensible and necessary redactions is provided to the Records Supervisor to redact from the videos prior to their being released to the requestor.
The redactions are usually done by the records manager or the records lead technician. The time it takes to make redactions depends on how many are necessary on a given video. The more redactions that are needed results in more time taken to redact the videos. The employees making the redactions will take the list and review the portions of the video before and after the necessary redactions to ensure all the information that should be legally redacted is removed. Redactions can include removing audio from the videos as well as blurring or blacking out the picture. (we blur or black out images that show deceased or injured individuals, juveniles or where protected information can be seen)
It is estimated it takes about 75% of the length of the video to complete the redactions. For example, it will take approximately 45 minutes to redact a video that is an hour long. Once redactions are made then the redacted videos are downloaded and placed on CD’s or a thumb drive depending on the length and number of videos. It takes considerably longer to download and burn a video to a CD. For an hour-long video, it takes approximately 20 minutes to download to a CD whereas it takes about 3 minutes to transfer downloads to a thumb drive. Both the Records Supervisor and Lead Records technician have had their disc drives replaced in their computers due to overuse.
The approximate labor cost of the Police Department’s Records Lead is $37.06/hour, the Records Supervisor approximate labor cost is $42.53/hour, and the Legal Advisor’s approximate labor cost is $118.53/hr. The total approximate hourly cost of reviewing, redacting, and copying body-camera videos is between 155.59/hour to $161.06/hour. This does not include any other costs related to the use of equipment or digital media. Therefore, setting the fee at the maximum allowed under the law at $46.00 per hour which is reasonable as is required under the statue. |
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