Saratoga Springs eyes income from accident reports

When insurance companies request an accident report from Saratoga Springs Police Department, they often send along a check to pay for the report.

The police aren’t able to accept those checks.

“We sent them back,” said Ron Kim, commissioner of public safety.

Accident reports are given free to whomever requests them.

But, next year the city plans to start charging for report requests that take more than two hours of an employee’s time to produce, after a change in the state’s Freedom of Information Law that allows that.

“If we can’t actually justify that we can spend the two hours on it, then we wouldn’t charge,” said Eileen Finneran, deputy commissioner of public safety.

Most reports, such as the one- or two-page reports for fender benders, will still be free, even though the city is legally allowed to charge 25 cents a page.

“We’re not looking to nickel and dime people,” said Chris Cole, assistant police chief, adding that collecting the money for those reports would be more trouble than it would be worth.

But people will have to pay for voluminous reports like the ones generated by fatal or multi-vehicle accidents, Cole said.

“They’re case files which are generating dozens, if not hundreds, of pieces of paper,” he said.

Kim estimates the city will get another $20,000 to $25,000 worth of income from the accident reports, based on an average cost of $15 for each one.

“It shows the volume of paperwork that we’re doing,” Kim said. There were 1,400 traffic accidents in the city last year.

Kim has wanted to charge for accident reports since he took office in 2006, and recent changes to the state Freedom of Information Law allow the city to charge for employee time if it lasts more than two hours.

Camille Jobin-Davis, assistant director of the state Committee on Open Government, is skeptical that city employees would need to spend more than two hours getting an accident report ready.

“I don’t believe a vehicle and accident traffic report would ever take more than two hours to prepare,” she said.

The police department also is reviewing its internal procedures and may start deleting information from accident reports depending on who is asking for it.

“We’re looking at changing that procedure for the purpose of making sure that information we’re giving out is proper,” Cole said.

But Jobin-Davis said there’s no justification in FOIL for redacting information from accident reports.

“We have state law that requires that report to be made public,” she said.

The new fees also have come about because the Department of Public Safety is looking to generate revenue after a part-time clerk was cut from its 2009 budget, Cole said.

That person was going to review the accident reports, which are handled by Sandy Arpei, the identification clerk.

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