This is the FOIA obligation with the sharpest teeth and the least attention: without published procedures, guidelines, and a public summary, your office may not charge a single FOIA fee. Here is what the documents must contain, and a template to adopt.
Most FOIA attention goes to deadlines and exemptions. But buried in the fee section is the obligation that costs offices the most money when it is missed. MCL 15.234(4) requires every public body to establish procedures and guidelines for implementing the Act and to create a written public summary, in language a requester can actually understand, explaining how to submit a request, how to read the responses, how deposits work, how fees are calculated, and how to challenge or appeal.
The consequence for skipping it is not a fine. It is worse: a body that has not complied may not require a deposit or charge any fee at all until it does. A township processing a records request that takes twenty hours of search and redaction labor recovers nothing, on every request, until the documents exist and are available the way the statute says.
A compliant document walks through the life of a request:
The summary is the version written for the person on the other side of the counter: one page, plain words, no subsection numbers doing the talking. How do I ask? What will it cost? When will I hear back? What can I do if you say no? A good test is to hand it to someone outside government and ask them to explain the process back to you. The statute requires it to be written specifically so a requester can understand the procedures, which means the summary fails its purpose the moment it reads like the ordinance that adopted it.
Adopt the documents (many boards do this by resolution), publish both to the website on a page a requester can find, put the direct link in your response templates so every written response carries it, and print a small stack for the counter. Then check the fee form: if your office bills from a single "copying and labor" line, move to the itemized six-component worksheet before the next invoice goes out. The companion guide to the math itself is the Michigan FOIA fee guide.
Dekree generates the procedures, the public summary, and the itemized fee worksheet from your organization’s profile, keeps them posted on your public portal where every response links them automatically, and enforces the statutory caps inside the fee calculation itself. When the law changes, the documents update with it.
Under MCL 15.234(4): written procedures and guidelines for processing requests, plus a written public summary in plain language covering how to submit a request, how to understand the responses, deposit requirements, how fees are calculated, and how to challenge or appeal. If the body maintains a website, both must be posted on it.
The statute removes your fee authority: a public body that has not complied with the procedures-and-guidelines requirement may not require deposits and may not charge any fee until it complies. Every hour of search and redaction labor on every request is unrecoverable until the documents exist.
Free copies of the procedures, guidelines, and summary must accompany each written response and be available on request at the office, but a website link can substitute for the paper copies if the response includes the specific link to the documents.
Yes in substance: the public body must use a standard form that details the fee with all six cost components itemized (the state publishes one; a body may use its own equivalent). Charging from an unitemized lump sum is how fee appeals are lost.
This article is educational information for Michigan public bodies, current as of the publication date. It is not legal advice, and statutes and court decisions change. Confirm specifics with your municipal attorney. Statute text: legislature.mi.gov.