(a) Fees payable.

(1) Except as provided in §219.4 of this part, a government authority seeking access to financial records pertaining to a customer, by written request, through:

(i) A court order;

(ii) A subpoena issued pursuant to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; or

(iii) Other agency administrative procedures, including administrative subpoenas, voluntary requests, or other process shall reimburse the financial institution for reasonably necessary costs directly incurred in searching for, reproducing or transporting books, papers, records, or other data as set forth in this section.

(2) The reimbursement schedule for a financial institution is set forth in appendix A to this section. If a financial institution has financial records that are stored at an independent storage facility that charges a fee to search for, reproduce, or transport particular records requested, these costs are considered to be directly incurred by the financial institution and may be included in the reimbursement.

(b) Search and processing costs.

(1) Reimbursement of search and processing costs shall cover the total amount of personnel time spent in locating, retrieving, reproducing, and preparing financial records for shipment. Search and processing costs shall not cover analysis of material or legal advice.

(2) If itemized separately, search and processing costs may include the actual cost of extracting electronically stored records, based on computer time and necessary supplies; however, personnel time for computer searches may be paid for at the rates set for computer support specialist, specified in appendix A to this section, but only when compliance with the request for information requires that the financial institution use programming or other higher level technical services of a computer support specialist in order to reproduce electronically stored information in the format requested by the government authority.

(3) Rates for Search and Processing in appendix A shall be recalculated as follows on October 1, 2012, and on October 1 of each subsequent three-year period utilizing Bureau of Labor Statistics (“BLS”) data or equivalent data (as so designated by the Board) by replacing the existing hourly rates with the sum of:

(i) Base labor rate recalculation—Using the most recently available wage data from the Occupational Employment Statistics program (http://www.bls.gov/oes/home.htm) for the BLS industry category “Credit Intermediation and Related Activities” (NAICS Code Number 522000) (or successor category):

(A) [Clerical/Technical category] the average of the median hourly rates for the “Information and Records Clerk” and “Computer Operator” job categories (SOC Code Number 43-4199 and 43-9011) (or any successor job categories);

(B) [Manager/Supervisor category] the median hourly rate for the “first-line supervisors/managers of office” job category (SOC Code Number 43-1011) (or successor category), and

(C) [Computer Support Specialist category] the median hourly rate for the “computer support specialist” job category (SOC Code Number 15-1041) (or successor category); plus

(ii) Benefits Adjustment—an amount for each hourly rate category that is equal to the product of:

(A) The hourly rates set forth in paragraph (b)(3)(i) of this section, and

(B) The most recently available “percent of total compensation” represented by “total benefits” for the “Credit Intermediation and Related Activities” industry category (private sector) set out in the Employment Cost Trends section of the National Compensation Survey (http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=cm); and

(iii) If the recalculated rates for Search and Processing (including the Base labor rate and the benefits adjustment) are not a multiple of $1, the recalculated rates shall be rounded up to the next multiple of $1.

(c) Reproduction costs. The reimbursement rates for reproduction costs for requested information are set forth in appendix A to this section, subject to the Conditions for Payment set forth in §219.5 of this part. Copies of photographs, films and other materials not listed in appendix A to this section are reimbursed at actual cost.

(d) Transportation or delivery costs. Reimbursement for transportation or delivery costs shall be for the reasonably necessary costs directly incurred to transport personnel to locate and retrieve the requested information, and to deliver such material to the place of examination.

[Reg. S, 61 FR 29640, June 12, 1996, as amended at 74 FR 50107, Sept. 30, 2009]