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Plain DocketHow Maine’s public legal record actually works
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Rubrique 01

Public records in Maine, from the request to the answer

What counts as a public record under Maine law, how a request proceeds, the deadlines and fees the statute sets out, and where the published pages stop.

Illustrative image: rows of archive boxes on metal shelving in a records room, one box pulled forward with its lid off and papers visible
Illustrative image. No photograph on this site documents a real place, document or person.

Maine’s Freedom of Access Act is the law that turns the state’s paperwork into something a member of the public can ask for. It has a procedure, and the procedure has numbers in it: how quickly an agency must say it received a request, what it may charge, when it may ask for money up front, and what happens when it says no.

Why the numbers matter more than the principle

Everyone agrees in the abstract that public bodies should be open. What decides whether a request works is narrower: whether the acknowledgement arrived inside the five working days that Title 1, section 408-A sets out, whether the estimate was given, whether the fee charged is the one the statute allows. This folio quotes those figures from the statute itself, read on the Legislature’s website on September 6, 2026.

What this folio does not do

It does not draft requests, review anyone’s correspondence, or say whether a particular refusal was lawful. That is legal work, and Plain Docket is not a law practice. What it can do is show where the published rule is, so that a reader arrives at the question already knowing what the text says.

In this folio

  1. Illustrative image: an open filing drawer of manila folders with printed tabs, one folder lifted clear of the others under office light

    What counts as a public record in Maine

    Maine's access statute fixes the numbers: five working days, two free hours of staff time, ten cents a page. The definition of what is public sits on pages the state's access site does not publish.

    Rubrique 01

  2. Illustrative image: a printed request letter lying on a counter beside a date stamp and an inked pad, the stamp face turned away

    How a public records request proceeds, step by step

    Five working days to acknowledge, a nonbinding time estimate, two free hours of staff time, ten cents a page: the stages of a Maine records request as Title 1, section 408-A publishes them.

    Rubrique 01

  3. Illustrative image: a photocopier lid raised over a stack of loose pages, a small coin dish and a tally sheet on the machine’s edge

    What a records request costs, and when money is asked first

    Maine's access statute caps what an agency may charge: two hours of staff time, then not more than $25 an hour, ten cents a page, with advance payment allowed once an estimate passes $100.

    Rubrique 01

  4. Illustrative image: a returned envelope face down on a desk beside an unopened folder, a small red rubber stamp lying nearby

    What happens when a request is refused

    A refusal is not the last word in Maine: Title 1, section 408-A, subsection 4 makes every denial subject to appeal under section 409. What the published text gives, and what it leaves out, is laid out here.

    Rubrique 01