NRIS/HERITAGE Fee Policy
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POLICY STATEMENT:
The Natural Resource Information System (NRIS) and the Montana
Natural Heritage Program (NHP) will charge a fee to private users
of the data and services in an effort to recover the service cost
incurred for staff time and other expenses to deliver data.


FEE STRUCTURE:

Basic Charge: $30.00 Access Fee per request
Includes one hour of data manager's time to clarify data need
with user, conduct computer search and retrieval, quality
assurance, and assembling and mailing completed data request,
etc.

Materials Charge:  $0.25/page of computer printout; $5.00/floppy
disk

Staff Charge:  $25.00 per hour, rounded to the nearest half-hour
Applies to data analysis, manual searches and map
interpretations, technical assistance in defining needs,
preparing special reports with the data, etc.(for staff time
beyond one hour included with basic charge)


EXEMPTIONS AND RELATED POLICIES:

1)  Charges only apply to private users of the NRIS/Heritage
program.  Private users are defined as "Any business, entity, or
individual using, directly or indirectly, the data and services
as part of a potential for-profit activity."

2)  No charges to government agencies, non-profit organizations,
contractors and consultants on retainer to government agencies,
or members of the general public.

3)  The NRIS Director reserves the right to waive user charges
when a data request requires less than one hour of response time
and no data is provided relevant to user's request.

4)  Invoices submitted with responses; payable in 30 days.

5)  All revenue is deposited into appropriate grant/contract
accounts.
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For more information about the user fee policies, contact:

  Montana State Library
  1515 East Sixth Ave.
  Helena, MT  59620.
  (406)444-5355
  
 jimhill@state.mt.us