Contractual Double-Dip? Ocean Springs Adopts New Massive Public Records Fee as Contract Reveals Taxpayers Already Pay For It
OCEAN SPRINGS, MS – The City of Ocean Springs just made it more difficult for residents and journalists to find out what their government is doing, but its plan may conflict with state law and its own contract with the City Attorney.
On October 20, the Board of Aldermen approved a new citywide fee schedule that includes a staggering $200-per-hour charge for legal review of public records.
Public records requests are among the most important tools available to citizens and journalists seeking to hold government officials accountable.
They allow residents to examine how their tax dollars are spent, review contracts signed on their behalf, scrutinize decisions made behind closed doors, and independently verify claims made by elected officials.
Under the city’s new policy, that citizen oversight could become financially out of reach for many residents.
The new fee amounts to a paywall on government transparency. And according to City Hall, its $200 hourly rate comes directly from the compensation agreement of City Attorney David Harris, whose law firm already receives $144,000 a year in taxpayer money.
But an examination of Harris’s contract by GC Wire raises serious questions about whether the city can legally impose the charge in the first place.
New Fee Buried in Consent Agenda
The new financial barrier was part of a sweeping revision to the city’s fee schedule, tucked into last Tuesday’s consent agenda — a portion of the Board of Aldermen meeting where elected officials approve multiple items together, typically without individual discussion.
Consent agendas are generally reserved for routine administrative matters, such as employee hires, resignations, and other housekeeping business.
But on October 20, the Board’s consent agenda included a revised fee schedule increasing or establishing numerous charges affecting Ocean Springs residents.
The changes extended well beyond routine administrative fees, affecting everything from water bills and short-term rental renewals to the cost of obtaining public records.
Among them was the new $200-per-hour charge for legal review and redaction of public documents.
Unlike a modest increase in copying fees, this charge could add hundreds or even thousands of dollars to a single public records request.
And who gets that money?
It’s not the city. According to an explanation provided to GC Wire by City Hall, the $200 hourly charge is based on the contract of City Attorney David Harris, who will perform the reviews.
But that opens another can of worms.
Mr. Harris’s contract with the city does not appear to authorize additional hourly compensation for public records review.
What Harris Gets Paid to Do — and What He Can Charge Extra For
Under his Professional Services Agreement with the City of Ocean Springs, David Harris’s law firm receives a $12,000 monthly retainer to provide general legal services to the city.
And the contract is quite specific about what taxpayers receive for that money.
Section 2 requires Harris to provide general legal counsel to the mayor, Board of Aldermen, and city staff. It also requires him to address legal inquiries from municipal departments and provide advice and interpretation of federal, state, and local laws.
In other words, taxpayers already pay Harris $144,000 a year to answer legal questions from city employees, including questions about Mississippi public records law.
That would ordinarily include advising the city clerk about whether public records can be released, whether information must be redacted, and how to comply with the Mississippi Public Records Act.
The contract does allow Harris to charge the city additional hourly fees. But those services are identified separately in Section 3, which lists only three categories:
- Handling litigation not covered by liability insurance.
- Handling litigation arising from administrative hearings.
- Representing the city in appeals to state court from decisions of the Board of Aldermen.
Section 4 establishes the compensation for those services at $200 per hour for attorneys and $75 per hour for paralegals. Importantly, Section 4 expressly ties that additional hourly compensation to the services listed in Section 3, which are entirely litigation based services.
Public records review is not on that list.
Neither is advising the city clerk about disclosure requirements, interpreting the Public Records Act, or determining whether routine government documents require redaction.
Those activities fall within the general legal services described in Section 2, for which Harris’s firm already receives its $12,000 monthly retainer.
Yet the city has now adopted a public records fee using the same $200 hourly rate that Harris’s contract reserves for litigation-related work.
So why is Ocean Springs applying his litigation rate to public records requests when taxpayers already pay him to provide general legal advice?
That is precisely the contradiction GC Wire asked City Hall to explain.
And that brings us to Mississippi law.
Under Mississippi Code § 25-61-7, cities may charge residents for the actual cost of searching, reviewing, and producing public records. They cannot charge more than the actual cost of performing that work.
That raises an obvious question in Ocean Springs.
If Harris is already being paid $144,000 annually to provide legal advice to city employees, and his contract does not authorize an additional $200 hourly payment for routine public records review, where is the city’s additional $200-per-hour expense coming from?
The city’s new fee schedule provides a price. Harris’s contract provides no obvious basis for that additional hourly charge.
And Mississippi law requires more than simply putting a price on a fee schedule.
The Ethics Commission Has Already Addressed Excessive Fees
The Mississippi Ethics Commission, which enforces the state’s Public Records Act, has previously ruled that government agencies cannot justify excessive charges simply by adopting a fee schedule.
In Public Records Case No. R-22-038, the Commission examined an agency’s established labor rates and found that using predetermined charges could violate state law when those rates did not reflect the actual compensation of the lowest-paid employee qualified to perform the work.
The Commission concluded that following such a policy could result in fees that violate Mississippi Code § 25-61-7(1), which explicitly mandates that any staff time or contractual services included in actual cost “shall be at the pay scale of the lowest level employee or contractor competent to respond to the request.”
In other words, a fee doesn’t become legal just because elected officials vote to approve it.
Harris’s professional services contract already covers routine administrative counsel and municipal law interpretation under a flat $12,000 monthly retainer. Nothing in the contract identifies ordinary public records review as a service eligible for additional hourly compensation.
If the city is already paying Harris to perform that work, how can it justify charging residents another $200 per hour for the same service? And if Harris is receiving additional compensation, where does his contract authorize it?
The Commission’s regulations also place the burden of justifying disputed fees squarely on the government.
Under Rule 201-5.3, a public body must demonstrate that its charges are reasonable, lawful, and justified by clear and convincing evidence or applicable legal authority.
Without that showing, the Commission presumes the costs were calculated in violation of the Public Records Act.
That means Ocean Springs cannot establish the legality of its new $200 hourly charge merely by pointing to the fee schedule adopted on October 20.
If the true additional out-of-pocket cost to the city is $0.00, it cannot justify a $200 hourly charge under state law.
City Hall’s Email Admission
Before publishing this investigation, GC Wire gave the City of Ocean Springs an opportunity to explain its new $200-per-hour public records fee.
Public Affairs Officer Carrie Cuevas responded Friday with the following explanation:
“In situations where records require legal review or redaction, the City incurs costs associated with that review. Mississippi Code Section 25-61-7 authorizes public bodies to collect fees reasonably calculated to reimburse the actual costs of searching, reviewing, duplicating, and, where applicable, redacting records in response to a public records request.”
But that explanation raises more questions than it answers.
Cuevas correctly cited Mississippi law. What she failed to explain was how the city incurs an additional $200 expense every time its attorney spends an hour reviewing public records.
The statute does not authorize cities to charge whatever amount they choose for legal services. It permits reimbursement of actual costs, subject to specific restrictions.
So what, exactly, is Ocean Springs paying an additional $200 per hour for?
Is Harris billing the city separately for these reviews? If so, where does his contract authorize those payments?
Or is Harris performing the reviews under his existing $144,000 annual retainer, with the city collecting an additional $200 per hour from residents?
Cuevas’s response addressed neither possibility.
Instead, she offered a general explanation of what state law permits without demonstrating how the city’s new fee satisfies that law.
Her response also stated:
“Whether a legal review fee applies is determined based on the nature of a particular request and the review necessary to comply with applicable legal requirements.”
But she did not identify who makes that determination, what criteria are used, or how the city decides that a request requires a $200-per-hour attorney rather than a lower-paid qualified employee.
GC Wire then asked a straightforward follow-up question: Who would perform these reviews? Was it David Harris?
Cuevas replied:
“The legal review will be done by the city attorney pursuant to the contract rate.”
And with that answer, City Hall connected its new public records fee directly to the compensation agreement at the center of this investigation.
The problem is that Harris’s contract reserves his additional $200 hourly compensation for litigation and appeals, not routine public records review.
City Hall was given an opportunity to explain its new fee.
It cited the law requiring reimbursement of actual costs, then pointed to a contract that does not authorize the additional hourly compensation.
What it never provided was an explanation of the actual additional cost residents are being asked to reimburse.
What Is Ocean Springs Trying to Keep the Public From Seeing?
Public records requests are not simply a tool for journalists. They are one of the few ways ordinary citizens can independently investigate the people who govern them.
And in Ocean Springs, those records have revealed some extraordinary things.
Over the past several years, GC Wire and its predecessor, the Ocean Springs Weekly Record, have used public records requests to uncover information that city officials did not voluntarily disclose to the public.
The Securix Traffic Citation Program: Contracts, emails, and other government records helped expose how Ocean Springs operated a controversial traffic citation program involving a private company, financial arrangements with public officials, and thousands of citations processed outside the ordinary municipal court system.
The Flock Safety Surveillance Contract: Public records revealed that the city approved a $55,200 contract for access to Flock’s surveillance platform, contradicting public descriptions that the agreement concerned only cameras. Subsequent records raised additional questions about how the city was billing and accounting for those services.
The Downtown Parking Garage: Government documents, including grant records and agreements, revealed major discrepancies between representations that the city would own the publicly funded parking garage and subsequent claims that the arrangement had always contemplated a long-term lease. Public records also revealed the city is paying the garage owners substantial money for services the city is not receiving.
Questionable Municipal Fees: Public records obtained by GC Wire revealed discrepancies between fees charged to residents and the city’s officially adopted fee schedules, raising questions about the authority for certain water department penalties and whether residents are due hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds.
These are not trivial discoveries.
They involve public money, government contracts, surveillance, municipal enforcement, and the accuracy of information provided to residents by their elected officials.
And they share something important in common.
Without access to government records, much of this information might never have come to light.
Now, the same city government whose records have exposed these discrepancies has adopted a policy that could make similar investigations dramatically more expensive.
Consider what happens when a journalist requests hundreds of emails concerning a controversial city contract.
Or when a resident requests documents explaining why a municipal fee was imposed.
Under the new policy, city officials can determine that those records require legal review, potentially adding hundreds or thousands of dollars to the cost of obtaining them.
And City Hall has not identified the standards used to decide when that review is necessary.
The result is a potential financial barrier between the public and the documents needed to scrutinize its government.
Whether discouraging investigations was the city’s intention remains unanswered. But the potential effect is clear: residents and journalists who cannot afford the additional charges may be unable to pursue records that would otherwise be accessible.
The Mississippi Public Records Act was enacted to provide access to government information, not to make meaningful oversight dependent on a citizen’s ability to pay an attorney’s hourly rate.
And as this investigation has documented, Ocean Springs has yet to establish how its new $200 charge complies with the statute’s actual-cost requirements or Harris’s existing compensation agreement.
The city’s new fee is a paywall that makes it much more difficult for residents and journalists to gain access to public documents.
It is essentially a tax.
And in this case, that tax represents a municipal surcharge or a payout straight into the pocket of City Attorney David Harris’s law firm — regardless of legality.
