Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a controversial bill into law that could charge the public hundreds of dollars for footage from law enforcement agencies, including body cameras.
At 11 p.m. on Thursday, DeWine announced signings and line-item vetoes on bills. The governor can make line-item vetoes on provisions in bills that contain appropriations — meaning he has the ability to pick and choose which policies within a larger piece of legislation get to stay or must go.
Around 2 a.m. during the 17-hour marathon lame duck session, lawmakers passed House Bill 315, a massive, roughly 450-page omnibus bill. In it was a provision that could charge people money to get access to video from police and jails.
Law enforcement could charge people for the "estimated cost" of processing the video — and you would have to pay before the footage is released.
Governments could charge up to $75 an hour for work, with a fee cap of $750 per request.
Legal experts said this could affect access to video from dash and body cameras, as well as surveillance video from inside jails, which are public records in Ohio.
The policy was not public, nor did it have a hearing prior to being snuck into the legislation.
Scripps News Cleveland asked the governor about transparency concerns during a press conference in December.
"These requests certainly should be honored, and we want them to be honored. We want them to be honored in a swift way that's very, very important," DeWine responded. "We also, though — if you have, for example, a small police department — very small police department — and they get a request like that, that could take one person a significant period of time."
Officials said the video redacting and compiling takes time.
"It's already hard enough to get video for journalists — when it comes to police shootings when it comes to different acts that we're trying to get on camera to show the public what's going on, why would we want to put a cost on something that helps the public understand what's going on?" Scripps News Cleveland Reporter Morgan Trau continued to ask during that December presser.
"Well, once again, we have close to 1,000 police departments in the state of Ohio. Some of them are very small," said DeWine. "What this amendment—again I've not made a decision about this— but what this amendment would do is allow them to recover some of the cost that is involved. This is a very heavy burden."
He added that he is a "strong proponent" of police cameras, but now that they are more widespread, he seems to suggest that it becomes tedious.
"It also creates a lot more film and a lot more video," he said. "It's not a question of whether you get it. It's not a question of how fast you get it. It's simply a question — is, as a matter of public policy, are we going to require some reimbursement for that?"
Scripps News Cleveland Investigators routinely break stories with footage obtained by police. Many of them have to deal with deadly police shootings, such as the 2022 death of Jayland Walker — who was shot nearly 50 times by eight Akron officers.
RELATED STORY | Akron Police release 'heartbreaking' body-cam video of police shooting of Jayland Walker
In his press release about the bill signings, DeWine addressed the continued concerns around this legislation:
"I strongly support the public’s–and the news media’s- right to access public records. The language in House Bill 315 doesn’t change that right.
Law enforcement-worn body cameras and dashboard cameras have been a major improvement for both law enforcement investigations and for accountability. However, I am sensitive to the fact that this changing technology has affected law enforcement by oftentimes creating unfunded burdens on these agencies, especially when it comes to the often time-consuming and labor-intensive work it takes to provide them as public records.
No law enforcement agency should ever have to choose between diverting resources for officers on the street to move them to administrative tasks like lengthy video redaction reviews for which agencies receive no compensation–and this is especially so for when the requestor of the video is a private company seeking to make money off of these videos. The language in House Bill 315 is a workable compromise to balance the modern realities of preparing these public records and the cost it takes to prepare them. Ohio law has long authorized optional user fees associated with the cost of duplicating public records, and the language in House Bill 315 applies that concept in a modern way to law enforcement-provided video records.
It is good that the language in House Bill 315 does not include a mandatory fee, but instead, it is optional at the discretion of the agency. It is also good the user fees are capped and directly related to the cost of production.
If the language in House Bill 315 related to public records turns out to have unforeseen consequences, I will work with the General Assembly to amend the language to address such legitimate concerns."
After this story was published, state Sen. Niraj Antani (R-Miamisburg) messaged to provide a statement, saying he is "deeply concerned" about the possible costs:
“When I sponsored HB 425, which established public record law for police worn body camera videos, our goal was to ensure the public and news media had clear access to body camera videos of public concern. Certainly, the cost of properly blurring out the videos and storage was something we discussed at length with our law enforcement partners. I am deeply concerned a $75 per hour fee will be burdensome. I appreciate Governor DeWine saying he will monitor this to ensure the fee does not restrict the public’s access to these videos, and that if it does he will work with the General Assembly to fix this.”
His bipartisan legislation from 2019 affirmed and made police recordings public records, but it had certain exceptions — such as when a person dies or is dead, unless an officer caused the death or if the deceased's executor consents to it.
DeWine expressed a desire for more accountability and transparency in each of his line-item vetoes, which came after he signed the legislation to allow police to charge for their transparency.
This story was originally published by Morgan Trau at Scripps News Cleveland.
