No fee shall be charged for the inspection of public records or locating public documents and making them available for copying except as provided by the Public Records Act, chapter 42.56 RCW. For copies of records, maps, photos, reports, and other nonstandard items the department shall charge a reasonable fee determined by the department payable at the time copies are furnished. This charge is the amount necessary to reimburse the department for its actual costs of copying. The department may require a deposit of up to ten percent of the estimated cost of providing copies for a request.

In addition to the charge imposed for providing copies of public records and for the use by any person of agency equipment copying costs, the agency may charge a customized service charge to reimburse the agency up to the actual cost under RCW 42.56.120(3) if the agency estimates that the request would require the use of information technology expertise to prepare data compilations, or provide customized electronic access services when such compilations and customized access services are not used by the agency for the other agency purposes. The department will notify the requestor of the customized service charge to be applied to the request, including an explanation of why the customized service charge applies, a description of the specific expertise, and a reasonable estimate cost of the charge.