Wyoming’s new records fee policies were recently put to the test when the state’s Department of Environmental Quality were found to have charged over $400 for a request that fell well under the state’s new threshold for charging of electronic records.

Last month, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice denied MuckRock a fee waiver for a public records request regarding immigration policy, stating that the TDCJ “does not waive fees for this type of request.” Last year, TDCJ made the same argument to justify a cost estimates of over one million dollars for records related to sexual assault in prison. This begs the question - what type of requests do TDCJ waive fees for?

Never before has it been so easy to engage others in your open government cause. Thinking of starting your own public records campaign? Already submitted a request, only to be thwarted by fees? We chatted with three MuckRock users who have had crowdfunding success to hear their tips for getting over crowdfunding anxieties, getting the word out, and, ultimately, getting records.

The Oregon Department of Education has responded to a request for LGBT protections within their schools with a fee estimate of $260 - over five times the previously highest estimate we’ve seen for the same information.

Last year, the DEA earned no small amount of infamy for putting a $1.4 million price tag on on a Freedom of Information Act request - among the largest ever recorded. This week, the Department of Defense blew that out of the water with a fee estimate of $660 million, nearly 500 times the previous record.