A year after Pennsylvania's new Right to Know law took effect, Mt. Lebanon School District is facing unexpected costs to comply with an increasing number of requests for e-mail correspondence.

Since Jan. 1, 2009, Mt. Lebanon has had 19 requests for e-mail records and correspondence under the Right to Know law. Thirteen of the requests have been made since December 2009.

Fulfilling requests for e-mail records is a "labor-intensive, complex process" and costs an average of about $2,600 per request, including legal and forensics costs, and not including staff time, technology director Christopher Stengel said.

The district's current technology infrastructure is not able to support e-mail requests cost-efficiently and effectively, he said, so staff members have been exploring ways to cut down on costs and make it easier to comply with the requests. The district is bidding on an e-mail archiving device, which costs about $18,000, and a $30,000 storage device. The request to purchase the equipment will be presented to the board Monday.

"Our network storage was not planned to need to be this big," Mr. Stengel said. The district receives about 15,000 to 20,000 non-spam e-mails a day, he said.

When Right to Know requests for e-mail records are made to the school district, they first go to Jeanine Szalinski, the open records officer, superintendent Timothy Steinhauer said at Monday's school board discussion meeting. Then Thomas Peterson, the district's solicitor, consults with Mr. Stengel to determine which databases to search to comply with the request.

"Sometimes the universe of the request is 10 e-mails, sometimes it could be thousands," Mr. Peterson said Monday night.

Depending on the complexity of the request, the district may use an outside firm to search through the e-mail system.

Under the new Right to Know law, signed by Gov. Ed Rendell on Feb. 14, 2008 and effective Jan. 1, 2009, the burden is on the government agency to explain why a document should not be released. The burden was formerly on the requester to explain why the information should be public.

Mt. Lebanon School District's website explains how to make a request and what information is accessible under the law. Any legal U.S. resident may file an unlimited number of requests under the law, without providing a reason for wanting the information.

For this story, the Post-Gazette filed its own Right to Know request seeking all requests already made involving e-mails. That request reveals that 11 of the 19 requests made since Jan. 1, 2009, were filed by Mark Hart. Mr. Hart was a school board member from 2005 to 2009 and president during the 2007-2008 term.

His 11 requests include: All e-mail correspondence over a two-year period between Mary D. Birks, a current school board member, and PTA council members and the district; e-mails between school district spokeswoman Cissy Bowman and the Post-Gazette regarding the school board over a one-year period; all correspondence between high school secretary Gina Stein regarding the school board and Mr. Hart over a five-month period; and copies of all e-mails to and from athletic director John Grogan over a 180-day period.

When asked about the reason for his requests, Mr. Hart said over the phone he had no comment. "I think they are self-explanatory," he said.

Other requests regarding e-mails were from resident Nita Fandray for all records related to President Obama's speech to students in September; three requests from resident Bill Matthews for records related to the high school renovation project; one request from former school board member John Ewing for copies of e-mails to and from finance director Janice Klein regarding referenda; one from former school board president Joseph Rodella asking for the results of the e-mail account audit of Mr. Grogan as requested by Mr. Hart; and two by resident David Huston asking for e-mails to and from school board members and district administrators regarding election of the school board president and vice president.

Ms. Klein said the school district had not budgeted for the approximately $48,000 of hardware to accommodate e-mail searches and storage, so would need to divert it from another source in the budget.

At this week's meeting, school board member Daniel Remely suggested the district make the names of the requestors and the costs of performing the requests available for public review.

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