As the debate over the use of automatic license plate readers heated up, the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO requested public information about the powerful surveillance systems that blanket the state.
VCIJ sent identical public records requests in June 2025 to nearly two dozen law enforcement agencies. Then came the bills.
The fees for public information – collected under contracts with private security firms already costing Virginia taxpayers millions of dollars – ranged from free to $73,000.
In Virginia, it’s all perfectly legal and acceptable. The Commonwealth is one of just nine states that allows unlimited hourly charges for public employees to find, review and release public information.
For journalists, activists, and other Virginians who routinely file public‑records requests, the absence of any cap on fees often leads to steep bills, a burden that transparency advocates say discourages access and undermines open government.
“There's not a whole lot of clear or cleanly applicable guidance about what reasonable fees are,” said Ian Kalish, supervising attorney at the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. “It's kind of a discretionary thing.”
Under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, a public body can only charge for “actual cost incurred in accessing, duplicating, supplying, or searching for the requested records and shall make all reasonable efforts to supply the requested records at the lowest possible cost.”
As public bodies determine “actual cost” differently, the cost of fulfilling public records requests can swing dramatically depending on who handles the work, said Megan Ryne, director of the Virginia Coalition of Open Government.
The high cost of obtaining public records undermines accountability, she said. Huge bills for obtaining data from Virginia’s automatic license plate reader systems prevent the public from understanding how the vast and powerful systems are used.
“If we don't have access to the underlying data, we don't have a way to analyze whether the data is being used correctly or fairly, or, you know, in ways that don't benefit people,” Ryne said.
The VCIJ at WHRO records requests – and the responses
VCIJ sought records, including audit logs for Flock Safety’s network of traffic cameras, to determine which agencies searched the surveillance data and why. This news organization did not request personal information about vehicle drivers, license plate numbers or other identifying data.
The estimated fee tended to climb when FOIA officers said they must spend significant time reviewing documents to determine redactions of private information.
The James City County Sheriff’s Office quoted over $73,000 to fulfill the request. A department FOIA officer cited the county’s administrative policy of charging $22 per hour of staff time in fulfilling similar record requests. The agency said the record would take over 3,300 hours to fulfill, mostly for review and redaction of personal information.
Starting pay for an entry-level position as a deputy sheriff in James City County is about $56,000, according to the county job board.
An estimate from the Staunton Police Department, which has since discontinued its use of Flock cameras, came in at roughly $10,000.
A similar request submitted to the Culpeper Police Department produced yet another figure: $6,969. When VCIJ asked for a breakdown of this specific cost, the department said the fee included 120 hours of personnel time at $58.08 per hour to review and produce the material. VCIJ did not pay the cost and withdrew the request.
A few agencies, like the Bridgewater and Woodstock police departments, provided the data free of charge.
Taken together, the wide range of estimates underscores how unpredictable and potentially prohibitive the cost of accessing information vital to understanding how government actions affect the public can be.
Lawmakers' efforts to rein in the cost of public records failed again this year in the General Assembly.
State Sen. Danica Roem, D-Manassas, has sponsored bills to limit public record request costs since 2018. The senator introduced a bill for the 2026 legislative session, proposing, among other changes, to cap public‑records fees at either the median hourly pay of the agency receiving the request or the actual hourly rate of the employee doing the work — whichever is lower.
Roem told the Virginia Mercury that she wants to ensure public‑records costs aren’t used to discourage people from filing FOIA requests.
In February, every member of the Senate Procurement and Open Government Subcommittee voted to kill the bill.
The law firm Sands Anderson, which advises many local governments and school divisions, advised public bodies to oppose the legislation because a fee cap “could present challenges when specialized technical staff are needed for complex productions.”
An impact statement from the Department of Planning and Budget said agencies that charge amounts higher than what is recommended by the bill “may experience a fiscal impact in the form of a reduction in the amount charged to requesting parties.”
Public bodies often accept opportunities to limit the scope of requests to reduce costs.
“I always lean toward disputing the cost and trying to negotiate with the FOIA officer,” said Clayton Tye, a privacy advocate based in Newport News. “‘What would the cost of my request be if I eliminated this portion of it? Is this the most time-consuming and burdensome portion of the request in your eyes?’”
A million-dollar public record
The law enforcement agencies’ responses to VCIJ were similar to the experiences of other newsrooms and engaged residents. Some have resorted to suing for the material.
Two nonprofit newsrooms, the Invisible Institute and MuckRock, recently won a settlement to obtain information from nearly 100,000 current and former law enforcement officers from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Service. The suit took more than a year to settle.
Alice Minium, a citizen activist who founded OpenOversightVA, used public record requests to build a searchable database of law enforcement officers in Virginia. A few years ago, the Virginia State Police sent her a $40,000 bill for records relating to the agency’s policies. She said the high cost prevented her from getting the records.
“It completely cuts off access to the ordinary person who wants information,” she said. “Journalists and people like me have way better chances with FOIA than a random person.”
She has successfully fought against other high fees.
One anti-corruption activist and journalist, Josh Stanfield, sued the City of Richmond over a Freedom of Information request related to meal tax enforcement in 2024.
Stanfield, who leads Activate Virginia and is not a lawyer, also sued the Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney for records related to the prosecution of a police officer.
While he has taken a few FOIA cases to court, he said responses to a few other requests have shocked him.
Richmond charged him $223 for a single email in 2024. The Virginia Department of Corrections also sent him a quote of over $32,000 for records relating to a prison K9 named Rivan killed while defending a correction officer from an attack at the Sussex I State Prison in 2024.
But that pales in comparison to the $1 million estimate he received from the Virginia State Police, asking for records related to Dataminr Inc., a surveillance company contracted by police agencies.
The Virginia State Police sent activist Josh Stanfield a seven-figure estimate for records relating to Dataminr
The Virginia State Police sent activist Josh Stanfield a seven-figure estimate for records relating to Dataminr
Stanfield requested records of communications related to the tech company, which has been accused of supplying police departments in other states with surveillance information used to monitor protesters.
The state police replied, indicating that potential records were over 900,000 emails.
Stanfield settled for a record of state police invoices and purchase orders with Dataminr, which eventually cost him $24.80. He believes the record he could not get due to the high cost would have helped him to “better understand who the Virginia State Police are paying Dataminr to surveil.”
Stanfield explained that his motivation is rooted in the Virginia FOIA proclamation that all records are presumed to be public unless the government can demonstrate otherwise.
Public bodies “act as if these are their records, and if you satisfy them, they'll give you what they want to give you,” he said. “I feel like the law is in line with my philosophical position, which is that the records are presumed to be mine. You're holding my records. I'm asking for them. You don't want to give them to me. Now, you have to go to the law and justify it.”
Reach Kunle Falayi at kunle.falayi@vcij.org
