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Data Practices Requests
Ramsey County data must be easily accessible to the public under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (MGDPA). All government data is treated as public data unless otherwise specified by another state or federal law. The public can view government data for free or obtain copies for a charge.
How to request data
It is Ramsey County's policy that public data practice requests be submitted via the data request portal or written request.
Access the data request portal
If you would like to submit a written request, please review the public data practices request policy.
How the county responds to your request
When we receive your request, we work to process it in a reasonable amount of time. If the county does not have the data or the data is not public, we will notify you as soon as possible and give you the reason why any data is not public. State law does not require creation or collection of new data in response to a data request.
When the county has the data and it is public:
- The county is not required to provide the data in a specific format or arrangement if it does not already keep the data in that format or arrangement.
- If you would like an electronic copy of the data, we will provide it if the data is in an electronic format.
- If you would like a paper copy of the data, we will provide copies.
- See copy charges section below for copy costs.
- You can pick up your copies or have them sent to you, if an address is provided.
- If you would like to look at the data, we will arrange a date, time and place for you to do so, at no cost.
- If you do not understand some of the data, such as technical terms, abbreviations or acronyms, a county employee will explain it.
Copy charges
You can view public government data for free.
If you like copies of the data, a fee may be charged. State law allows the county to charge the public for copies of government data at the following rates:
- 25 cents per copy - For 100 or fewer paper copies.
- The actual cost for materials and employee time to search and retrieve data - if the request is for:
- More than 100 copies.
- Another type of media (photographs, video, CD, DVD, etc.).
- Summary data.
For detailed information on costs and fees, please see the public data practices request policy.