It didn’t take long for several government entities in Colorado to adopt the new, much-higher, maximum CORA fee rate that went into effect on Monday, July 1.

At least 19 cities, towns, counties, state agencies, metro districts and school districts already have indicated they will now charge $41.37/hour, rather than the previous maximum rate of $33.58/hour, to process Colorado Open Records Act requests, a Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition review of government websites and news reports shows. Another raised its rate to $40/hour.

As required by a 2014 amendment to CORA, Legislative Council calculated the new top rate on June 12, inflating the current rate by the percentage change in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood consumer price index since 2019. Soaring inflation over the past five years is the reason for the $7.79-per-hour, 23.2 percent increase, which will make obtaining public records in Colorado even more expensive when requests take more than one hour to fill. (The first hour of research and retrieval still must be provided at no charge.)