Tired of hearing complaints from agencies that they've been backlogged by requests to copy or even just take a quick look at public documents, a state lawmaker wants to charge people extra for multiple and lengthy information requests.

The proposal from state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, would let a state agency or school district add fees for locating, compiling and copying public information if the agency has already fulfilled one or more requests from the same person during a calendar month totaling at least 50 pages.

Wentworth said he drafted the legislation after hearing that people were making several large requests. A few, he believed, were simply trying to create a clog in the system.

"They start asking for massive volumes of information," Wentworth said. "Sometimes two, three requests in the same day. For no apparent reason. Sometimes when they (the agency) call them to tell them it's there, they don't pick it up."

The state's Public Information Act currently allows an agency to add charges for things like labor and overhead if a request is for over 50 pages, with a couple of exceptions. But the act doesn't allow an agency to add requests together.

Under Wentworth's bill, someone who has made a single request for 50 pages of information, then makes a second, separate request for just 20 pages of records in the same month to the same agency, could be charged the additional fees for locating and compiling those 20 pages, even though the subsequent request was for fewer than 50 pages.

"Taxpayers shouldn't have to underwrite requests like that," Wentworth said.

But journalists and the general public rely on the act, and some freedom of information advocacy groups say the bill as written is unacceptable.

Paul Watler, chairman of the Freedom Information Foundation of Texas' legislative committee, acknowledged that a few people abuse the system, but said Wentworth's bill would hurt the many who are rightfully seeking public information.

"Experience shows that the vast majority of persons who submit open records requests to governmental bodies do so in good faith and for very legitimate purposes," Watler said. "So any proposal that would limit or impose additional costs on potentially the majority of people who are proceeding with good intentions is a concern."

And, he noted, the lines aren't always clear: "One person's harassing request is another person's effort to ensure open and honest government."

Superintendent Nola Wellman, of the Eanes Independent School District in Austin, said it's a difficult balance.

"For those that are wanting things very broad in scope we need a method to recoup the costs of that," she said. "If you want everything ever published about the athletic program, that's a lot of people to go through."

Wellman said her district has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fulfill multiple requests from just a few parents. And school district logs show the topics are wide-ranging, including personnel files, salary data and budgets.

Ken Whalen, executive vice president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association, said his group will likely propose alternative language to make the bill more palatable.

"We recognize those kinds of over-the-top requests can be a problem," Whalen said. "How to address that is what we're not sure about."