SECTION 252:305-1-11. Required fees and other pricing

(a)   Fees. Fees established for samples submitted by governmental entities are listed in Appendix A. Fees established for samples submitted by private citizens are listed in Appendix B.

(b)   Discount. The State Environmental Lab may discount certain analytical work for customers who provide a large volume of prescheduled samples. Discounts will be determined by the Director of Customer Services taking into account cost savings to the agency.

(c)   Other analysis. The State Environmental lab will consider performing other types of analyses upon special request. The fees for these tests will be based upon method development costs, actual analytical costs and a $2.00 per sample charge for processing of invoices and payments.

(d)   Supply and consumables charges. Unless otherwise specified by the Director of Customer Services, the analytical fees reflected in these rules include sample containers, sample digestion/extraction and any other consumables necessary to perform the requested analytical work.

(e)   Other charges. The State Environmental Lab will consider accommodating extraordinary requests with respect to data handling, quality assurance, sample handling or reporting. The fees for these extraordinary requests will be based upon administrative costs, actual personnel costs and any associated development costs.

(f)   Annual Fee Adjustment. To assist in meeting rising costs to the DEQ of the environmental services associated with the laboratory services program, the fees set out in this Section and Appendices A and B shall be automatically adjusted on July 1st every year to correspond to the percentage, if any, by which the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the most recent calendar year exceeds the CPI for the previous calendar year. The DEQ may round the adjusted fees up to the nearest dollar. The DEQ may waive collection of an automatic increase in a given year if it determines other revenues, including appropriated state general revenue funds, have increased sufficiently to make the funds generated by the automatic adjustment unnecessary in that year. A waiver does not affect future automatic adjustments.

(1)   Any automatic fee adjustment under this subsection may be averted or eliminated, or the adjustment percentage may be modified, by rule promulgated pursuant to the Oklahoma Administrative Procedures Act. The rulemaking process may be initiated in any manner provided by law, including a petition for rulemaking pursuant to 75 O.S. § 305 and OAC 252:4-5-3 by any person affected by the automatic fee adjustment.

(2)   If the United States Department of Labor ceases to publish the CPI or revises the methodology or base years, no further automatic fee adjustments shall occur until a new automatic fee adjustment rule is promulgated pursuant to the Oklahoma Administrative Procedures Act.

(3)   For purposes of this subsection, "Consumer Price Index" or "CPI" means the Consumer Price Index - All Urban Consumers (U.S. All Items, Current Series, 1982-1984=100, CUUR0000SA0) published by the United States Department of Labor. The CPI for a calendar year is the figure denoted by the Department of Labor as the "Annual" index figure for that calendar year.

[Source: Added at 18 Ok Reg 1946, eff 6-11-01; Amended at 25 Ok Reg 2258, eff 7-11-08]