The Supervisor of Records found Weymouth’s estimate unsupported, gave the District ten business days to revise or explain it, and held that the twelve hours of redaction work inside it cannot be charged at all — because the District never filed the petition those hours require.
Weymouth Public Schools answered a public records request in September with a bill: $350.00 for about thirty settlement agreements and related student-dispute documents. On October 13, 2026, the Supervisor of Records took the estimate apart. Two thirds of it — $300.00 in redaction hours — is not chargeable to us at all. The other $50.00 survives only if the District can explain it.
The determination is SPR26/4062, signed by Supervisor of Records Manza Arthur and addressed to Eileen Pitts, Executive Assistant to the Superintendent at Weymouth Public Schools. Every figure below is the District’s own, reprinted from its September 28 response inside the determination. The District’s status, docket number and stated fee stay on the Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project tracker as they change.
The request, and the answer that was not records
Parent Data Force sent the request on September 23, 2026, asking for electronic copies of every final or executed student-related agreement: settlement agreements and settlement-and-release agreements, resolution agreements, MOUs, MOAs, mediation agreements, stipulations and consent agreements, side letters, and any amendment, addendum or extension that materially alters one. The window began September 18, 2021.
The Town Clerk’s Office confirmed the request had been uploaded to its records portal. The School Department acknowledged the same day and assigned portal reference 26-4756.
Five days later, on September 28, the District responded with an estimate rather than records. It identified approximately 30 records that “may be responsive,” said additional hard-copy records still had to be searched, and warned that the request would be deemed withdrawn if the fee went unpaid within twenty business days. We appealed the same day under G.L. c. 66, § 10A, and the appeal was docketed as SPR26/4062.
The estimate, line by line
This is the whole bill, exactly as the District itemized it:
- Initial search: 2 hours × $0 = $0. The work already done, the District said, fell inside the first two free hours the law gives a municipality.
- Additional search for responsive records: 1 hour × $25 = $25.
- Review, segregation and redaction of approximately 30 files: estimated at 20 to 30 minutes per file, or “approximately 12 hours” in total, × $25 = $300.
- Final review and preparation of files for delivery: 1 hour × $25 = $25.
- Digital delivery: $0.
Fourteen chargeable hours, fourteen hours of billed work, $350.00. The District also said it does not employ anyone with the necessary skill who is paid less than $25.00 an hour, which is why the rate sat at the statutory municipal maximum.
What we objected to
Our appeal did not argue about the multiplication. It argued about the basis.
Thirty files at twenty to thirty minutes each is a range that could produce anywhere from ten to fifteen hours, and the District billed twelve. The response, we wrote, “does not establish a sufficiently definite or supported factual basis for the estimate, does not separate legally chargeable from potentially nonchargeable work, and omits a required production timeframe.” We also flagged that the District had identified thirty potentially responsive records while simultaneously saying its search was not finished, and was demanding advance payment on that unfinished number.
We had also asked, in the original request, for a waiver or reduction under G.L. c. 66, § 10(d)(v). The District’s response said nothing about it. We asked that any revised estimate say whether the waiver request had been considered.
Three holdings, in order of cost
The waiver request is discretionary, and the Supervisor cannot force it. That is the one place the determination says no. The Supervisor “may encourage fees to be waived,” the ruling states, but “may not mandate that a records access officer waive fees.” Our waiver argument is answered, and it is answered against us.
The range has to become a number. The District must clarify whether the twenty to thirty minutes is per page or per record. If it is per record, the District must say how many pages a record runs. Either way it must give “a specific time estimate, rather than a range of time.” The two single-hour line items — the extra search hour and the final preparation hour — must be explained too: the types of records involved, the tasks, and what each task entails.
The redaction hours cannot be billed. This is the holding that removed two thirds of the estimate. A municipality may not charge for time spent segregating or redacting records unless the segregation or redaction is required by law or approved by the Supervisor under a petition — and the Supervisor wrote that she is “not aware that the School has submitted a petition.” The consequence is flat: “the School may not assess a fee for the employee time spent to redact records under Exemption (c).” Twelve hours at $25 is the $300 that comes off the bill.
The rule the District ran into is not obscure, and it is written the same way for every municipality: file the petition before you charge the redaction. Weymouth’s estimate billed the hours as a line item, and the determination treats the missing petition as dispositive. Any district that itemizes redaction time without a § 10(d)(iv) petition is billing for something it has not been cleared to charge.
What the order requires
Within ten business days the School must respond to the request “provided in a manner consistent with this order,” and must send a copy of that response to the Public Records Division. The order also preserves our options on the substance: we may appeal the substantive nature of the District’s response within ninety days.
Weymouth’s row on the tracker still reads Appeal filed. No records have arrived, no fee has been paid, and until the District reissues an estimate that separates chargeable from non-chargeable work, there is nothing to accept. Every district’s status, docket, fee figure and production history sits on the Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project tracker.
Weymouth’s $350.00 estimate is not the largest in this project, and this determination is the reason to care about the small ones. The largest single estimate we have received is still Bridgewater-Raynham’s $27,550.00 for 470 hours of claimed work — arithmetic built the same way, at a scale where being wrong about what is chargeable is worth far more than $300. Thirty-two districts in this project have now stated a fee; together they total $44,641.20, and the same provisions of G.L. c. 66, § 10(d) govern every one of them.
What This Means for Parents
- You can refuse to pay, and you do not have to be a lawyer to say why. We objected to the basis of the estimate, not the arithmetic, and the Supervisor agreed. If a district hands you a range of hours instead of a number, that is a defect you can name in writing.
- Redaction time is not automatically your bill. Under state law a municipality may not charge for the time it spends segregating or redacting records unless a petition has been approved. Weymouth billed $300 for exactly that, with no petition on file, and the charge was struck.
- A fee estimate does not have to end your request. The District’s own letter said the request would be deemed withdrawn if $350 went unpaid in twenty business days. Appealing instead of paying kept the request alive and produced this ruling.
- Ask for a waiver every time, and expect a discretionary answer. The Supervisor may encourage a waiver but cannot order one. Putting the request in writing makes the district say whether it considered it — silence is what we objected to.
- Watch the tracker, not the portal. Weymouth’s row reads Appeal filed until real records arrive and clear review. If your district is not on the tracker, write to the project and it becomes another row on the board.
Sources
- Supervisor of Records, determination SPR26/4062, Oct. 13, 2026 — addressed to Eileen Pitts, Executive Assistant to the Superintendent, Weymouth Public Schools; granted the appeal of the Sept. 28, 2026 fee estimate and ordered a revised or explained estimate within ten business days.
- Weymouth Public Schools, response and fee estimate of Sept. 28, 2026, as reprinted in the determination: $350.00 total; 2 hours initial search at $0; 1 hour additional search at $25; 12 hours review, segregation and redaction of approximately 30 files at $25; 1 hour final preparation at $25; $0 digital delivery.
- Weymouth Public Schools, acknowledgment of Sept. 23, 2026, portal reference 26-4756.
- Parent Data Force, public records request of Sept. 23, 2026; appeal filed Sept. 28, 2026 under G.L. c. 66, § 10A.
- Tracker row for Weymouth Public Schools — status Appeal filed, docket SPR26/4062, stated estimate $350.00 — on the Massachusetts Student Settlement Records Project.
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