26FC:0024 Jarrod Diers vs. Oskaloosa Community School District - Investigative Report & Probable Cause Order

The Iowa Public Information Board

COMES NOW, Alexander Lee, Agency Counsel for the Iowa Public Information Board (IPIB), and enters this Investigative Report:

On January 23, 2026, Jarrod Diers (Complainant) filed formal complaint 26FC:0024, alleging that the Oskaloosa Community School District (Respondent) violated Iowa Code Chapter 22.

IPIB accepted this Complaint on March 19, 2026.

Facts

On August 22, 2024, the Oskaloosa Police Department issues a criminal trespass notice against Complainant, barring him from all Oskaloosa Community School District properties indefinitely. On January 6, 2026, Respondent’s Superintendent sent a written letter stating that the decision had been made in consultation between Respondent and law enforcement.

On January 23, 2026, Complainant filed formal complaint 26FC:0024-1, alleging unreasonable delay in response to a Chapter 22 request seeking records related to the trespass notice, including communications between Respondent and the Oskaloosa Police Department, policies and other documentation relied upon to justify exclusion, and materials from the police investigative file related to the underlying incident.[1]

After opening the complaint, Respondent stated their willingness to produce responsive records, though fulfillment of the request would be contingent on payment of reasonable fees. During the course of IPIB’s investigation, Complainant revised the scope of his Chapter 22 request multiple times. The most recent revision, from April 20, 2026, narrowed the request to the following:

1. Communications between District staff and law enforcement concerning Complainant;

2. Incident reports, internal notes, or summaries describing the alleged conduct;

3. Emails or directives involving the Superintendent related to the decision; and

4. Any documentation identifying the source of statements made in the January 26 letter.

Complainant also narrowed the timeframe for the request to focus on records from August 2024.

On April 24, 2026, after conducting a new search which identified 139 emails and seven Google Drive files as potentially responsive, Respondent provided a final fee estimate of $222.75. According to Respondent, this was based on an estimated seven hours of required review time at a rate of $35/hour.[2] Respondent notes that, while multiple individuals will be involved in fulfilling the request, $35/hour is lower than any of their actual hourly rates. Additionally, Respondent has waived legal fees associated with expected confidentiality review for these records.

Complainant has raised various objections throughout the course of investigation. Within the scope of the accepted complaint, Complainant asserts:

1. That Respondent must assign fulfillment of the records request to the lowest paid qualified employee in order to avoid unreasonable fees;

2. That Respondent’s fee estimate must be substantiated by a detailed breakdown of each category of work involved in the request;

3. That Respondent is entitled to an opportunity to examine the records at no cost before paying for copies; and

4. That Respondent had separately failed to answer Complainant’s questions about the underlying dispute (e.g. how they identified him at the school event in August 2024).

Applicable Law

“Although fulfillment of a request for a copy of a public record may be contingent upon receipt of payment of reasonable expenses, the lawful custodian shall make every reasonable effort to provide the public record requested at no cost other than copying costs for a record which takes less than thirty minutes to produce. In the event expenses are necessary, such expenses shall be reasonable and communicated to the requester upon receipt of the request. A person may contest the reasonableness of the custodian's expenses as provided for in this chapter.” Iowa Code 22.3(1).

“The fee for the copying service as determined by the lawful custodian shall not exceed the actual cost of providing the service. Actual costs shall include only those reasonable expenses directly attributable to supervising the examination of and making and providing copies of public records. Actual costs shall not include charges for ordinary expenses or costs such as employment benefits, depreciation, maintenance, electricity, or insurance associated with the administration of the office of the lawful custodian.” Iowa Code 22.3(2).

Analysis

Iowa Code § 22.3(1) and (2) permit a government body to charge a reasonable fee for the production of records, though this fee “shall not exceed the actual cost of providing the service” and “[a]ctual costs shall include only those reasonable expenses directly attributable to supervising the examination of and making and providing copies of public records.”

Respondent’s fee estimate appears consistent with that standard. The new search relied upon for the revised estimate revealed 146 potentially responsive records, including seven files in addition to the emails. Based in part on work already done on the previous versions of the request, Respondent expects the total time expenditure to produce these records to come to approximately seven hours. Without accounting for the portion of this estimate which would be used to verify that all records have actually been located (which may result in a higher number of total records), this suggests a rate of approximately twenty records per hour, or around 2.75 minutes per record.

Although this rate may be a bit longer than what might be considered “typical,” it does not appear unreasonable under the circumstances, as the required records will inherently involve multiple potential categories of confidentiality, including potential protections for students, Iowa Code § 22.7(5) confidentiality for police investigative materials, and Iowa Code § 22.7(50) confidentiality for security records. This necessitates closer review to avoid unintentional disclosure of protected information. Notably, Respondent has also already made concessions to reduce the fee to charge less than the actual costs to be incurred, as the hourly rate used is intentionally lower than the hourly rates of the individuals involved in the request, and the fee does not include expected legal fees associated with secondary confidentiality review.

Despite Complainant’s assertions, nothing in Chapter 22 requires a lawful custodian to assign records production to its lowest paid employee capable of doing the work. Although fees must be “reasonable,” reasonableness does not imply the lowest possible cost, and neither IPIB nor the courts have ever interpreted Iowa Code § 22.3(2) to bar a lawful custodian from charging the actual hourly rate of an employee simply because there is another employee with a lower hourly rate who could have performed the work. A government body may reasonably choose to allocate these duties differently based on any number of considerations, including a higher compensated employee’s familiarity with specific records, general experience dealing with records requests, authorization to review confidential materials, or simple availability and workload balance.

Next, Complainant argues that the fee estimate cannot be deemed reasonable without a detailed breakdown of the type of work to be done, the proportion of work done by each person assigned to the task, and similar information. This is not what the law requires. Although such a breakdown may be requested by a court (or IPIB) in assessing “reasonable expenses,” the $222.75 figure is an estimate given in advance for work which has not yet been done, meaning that the level of detail being requested would be impossible to accurately produce. At this stage, the standard of review is whether the fee estimate is reasonable based on the initial search and related factors which can be known about the records production before it is done. For the reasons given above, the estimate appears to be reasonable. Of course, Respondent would still be responsible for keeping track of the actual costs incurred during the fulfillment of the request, and it would have a duty to reimburse Complainant in the event that they overestimated. Notably, because Respondent is only seeking half of the quoted fee in advance, there is essentially no risk that Complainant would be overpaying (even without considering the measures taken to reduce the fee).

Complainant also asserts a right to examine the records once they have been assembled before he is required to pay. In support of this, he cites Iowa Code § 22.2(1), which states that “[u]nless otherwise provided for by law, the right to examine a public record shall include the right to examine a public record without charge while the public record is in the physical possession of the custodian of the public record.” This argument neglects the various fee provisions located in the following section, which clearly “provide otherwise.” See, e.g., Iowa Code § 22.3(1) (“fulfillment of a request for a copy of a public record may be contingent upon receipt of payment of reasonable expenses”); Iowa Code § 22.3(2) (“[t]he lawful custodian may charge a reasonable fee for the services of the lawful custodian or the custodian’s authorized designee in supervising the examination and copying of the records”). Where these provisions clearly authorize a government body to recover costs associated with fulfillment of a request, it would directly conflict with the plain language of the statute to allow a requester to make a request, allow the government body to incur hours’ worth of costs, and then evade statutorily authorized fees simply because they opt to inspect the records in-person rather than receiving copies.

Finally, Complainant separately asserts a violation from Respondent’s failure to answer various inquiries about the underlying incident (e.g. how they identified him at the school event or how they obtained certain personal information about him found in subsequent reports). Because these questions are not requests for public records, they are beyond the scope of IPIB’s jurisdiction over Chapter 22.

Dismissal of this case would not negate Respondent’s duty to fulfill the request in the event that Complainant chooses to pay the estimated fee.

IPIB Action

The Board may take the following actions upon receipt of a probable cause report:

a. Redirect the matter for further investigation;

b. Dismiss the matter for lack of probable cause to believe a violation has occurred;

c. Make a determination that probable cause exists to believe a violation has occurred, but, as an exercise of administrative discretion, dismiss the matter; or

d. Make a determination that probable cause exists to believe a violation has occurred, designate a prosecutor and direct the issuance of a statement of charges to initiate a contested case proceeding.

Iowa Admin. Code r. 497-2.2(4).

Recommendation

Because Respondent has fulfilled its obligations under Chapter 22 by providing a reasonable fee estimate for the production of the requested records, it is recommended that the Board dismiss the matter for lack of probable cause to believe that a violation has occurred.

By the IPIB Agency Counsel,

_________________________

Alexander Lee, J.D.

CERTIFICATE OF MAILING

This document was sent on May 7, 2026, to:

Jarrod Diers, Complainant

Oskaloosa Community School District, Respondent