On April 29, Idaho Education News filed similar public records requests with the state’s four-year schools.

Boise State University, Idaho State University and Lewis-Clark State College provided the records within 10 business days, as state law requires.

Instead, the University of Idaho sent EdNews an invoice: for $484.46, which might or might not cover its stated cost of providing public records to the public.

State law allows public agencies to bill for records requests — but agencies aren’t required to do so. The $484.46 bill, the latest in a series of invoices the U of I has sent EdNews, represents a conscious policy decision with an obvious chilling effect.

First, here’s a refresher on Idaho’s Public Records Act. The intent of the law is clearly stated, and right in the first paragraph. “Every person has a right to examine and take a copy of any public record of this state and there is a presumption that all public records in Idaho are open at all reasonable times for inspection.”

Presumption of openness. For all Idahoans, not just journalists.

Now, to our request. EdNews asked for emails from the 2025 legislative session, between the four-year schools’ presidents and government affairs staff and elected lawmakers. This is a routine records request we have filed in the past. And it often produces news: EdNews first learned about Idaho State’s interest in acquiring the for-profit Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine through a similar records request in 2024.

EdNews tried to streamline the records search as much as possible, asking only for emails using lawmakers’ official “senate.idaho.gov” or “house.idaho.gov” addresses.

Still, the U of I (and only the U of I) said the request was overly broad. The U of I said it couldn’t complete the request within the two hours of staff time an agency must dedicate to a records request. The U of I said it would need to carve out an additional 9.25 hours of staff time — mostly attorney and paralegal staff time — just for “identifying, gathering, and reviewing” the emails.

Then, the U of I said it would be able to determine how much time it would take to redact the emails, if necessary. At that point, the U of I said it would come up with a final bill, which might be more than $484.46, or less.

“The university will not expend the time and resources necessary to identify and gather the responsive records at the risk of taxpayer funds,” Gina M. Taruscio of the U of I’s office of general counsel said in a May 5 email to EdNews.

The dilemma here — aside from the sticker price itself — is the fact that Idaho’s otherwise solid public records law provides only one avenue for appeal. The only way to challenge an agency is through district court, which isn’t exactly a low-cost alternative.

Fortunately, we do have one other alternative: writing about how Boise State, Idaho State and LC State fulfilled our requests, and about how the U of I didn’t.