Forwarded with the original poster's permission: Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 22:13:21 -0500 From: Cliff Lamere <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Message-ID: <[email protected]> Subject: [D-Col] Fee Increase for Vital Records Certificates in NY Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In the mail today, I received a photocopy of pages 13-14 of what I was told was Governor Pataki's proposed budget.  It is dated 1/25/03 and relates to vital records certificates.  It was sent from the office of the New York Senate Majority Leader, Joseph Bruno. In the quote below, the square brackets enclose the old price.  The new price was underlined, but underlining will not appear in a RootsWeb email, so I have put the new price between asterisks. "For any search of the files and records conducted for authorized genealogical or research purposes, the commissioner or any person authorized by him shall be entitled to, and the applicant shall pay, a fee of [ten] *twenty* dollars for each hour or fractional part of an hour of time of search, together with a fee of [one dollar] *two dollars* for each uncertified copy or abstract of such record requested by the applicant or for a certification that a search discloses no record." There was also information about certified certificates.  The following is a summary of information concerning both kinds of vital records certificates: **  Uncertified vital records certificates (for genealogical purposes) - current $11 fee will become $22 **  Certified vital records certificates - current $15 fee will become $30 These are only proposed changes, but I can see no reason why they won't be accepted.  This change will only directly affect the state's fees, but since almost all towns, villages and cities presently charge the same fee as the state, I suspect that they will quickly raise their rates as well. I feel certain that those people who have already submitted applications for vital records certificates (birth, marriage, or death) to the NYS Health Dept. will not be affected by the increase, even though there may be the usual long wait before the certificates arrive (local communities send certificate very quickly).  Also, I believe that any application postmarked (or possibly received) before the passage of the next budget will be accepted at the current lower fee.  The new budget is due to go into effect April 1, but the state has not passed a budget on time for over a decade.  The law may make the change effective immediately upon passage, or the Health Dept. might be given a short time to prepare new forms and rewrite online webpages.  It is very unlikely that it would be made retroactive to April 1. Permission to forward this email to other mailing lists is hereby granted, as long as the entire message is forwarded. I would appreciate a note from the list administrator of any mailing list that receives this email.  I am just curious how far a message might go when originally sent to four mailing lists. Cliff Lamere   Albany, NY     <[email protected]>