Missouri agency tried to bill a genealogy group $1.5 million for records

This summer, a lawyer for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services responded to a genealogy group's request for birth and death records. The lawyer said fulfilling the Sunshine Law request would require 35,604 hours of staff time and cost $1.49 million.

A few days later, another lawyer at the department sent Reclaim the Records, the nonprofit genealogy group, a revised estimate. Alas, it was still ridiculous amount of money. After making a 72-cent adjustment in the hourly rate for staff time, a Health and Senior Services attorney said the records would now cost a mere $1.46 million.

Faced with an agency in Unthinking Bureaucrat mode, Reclaim the Records hired an attorney, Bernie Rhodes, a media-law specialist at the Kansas City law firm Lathrop & Gage. Rhodes asked the Department of Health and Senior Services for more information about the database that stored the birth and death records. Based on the information, he suggested some ideas and even provided the toll-free number for the help desk for software provider the department uses to retrieve records from its database.

After considering Rhodes' suggestions, the department quoted a new estimate. The records, the department said, would now cost $5,174.

The story doesn't end there, however.

Read more: http://www.pitch.com/news/blog/20845956/missouri-agency-tried-to-bill-a-genealogy-group-15-million-for-records