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From: Cliff Lamere <>
Subject: [NYALBANY] Fee for Vital Records certificates may rise
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 17:54:04 -0500
References: <JIEFLOPDLCEBDAOPIPPBCEMKCAAA.tbirdgal57@comcast.net>


For genealogical purposes, the NYS Health Dept. currently charges $11 per birth, marriage or death certificate. Most, perhaps all, local governments in the state charge the same fee (they all do in the Albany area). I suspect that the fee will go up soon. The state is expected to be a total of 11 billion dollars in the red over this year and 2004. Aid to local communities will not be as high as the communities would like. Aid to education may be decreased, which means that local school taxes will go up. The local communities were already planning tax increases. Now they will rise more than planned.

My point is this. According to what I saw in the newspaper, certificates of vital records may be one of the fees that rises soon. The state may control only the fee charged by the NYS Health Dept., or it may control local offices as well. Either way, I would expect the local offices to immediately raise their fees to the same level. If the change in state law comes to pass (there is not likely to be any lobbying against the increase), the fees should go up in April or May or whenever the legislature finally agrees on a budget.

If it happens, I suspect that all of the people who sent their check in earlier will be OK, especially if the state cashes the check, which they tend to do months before sending out the certificate (or so I have heard several times). If you are thinking about requesting several certificates, you may want to do request them soon. I wouldn't be surprised to see the fee raised to $15 or higher, although I have no idea what higher fee they will agree on, if any. If you are writing a book and was considering sending for a lot of them, you could save a considerable sum.

Does anyone else, perhaps a state employee, know more about this subject?

Cliff
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JAG wrote:

> Thanks, Cliff. It sounds like they do have records back to 1870. I wonder
> if they are speedier than the state archives (I understand the state can
> take forever). (And yes, I was referring to the city archives.) Because
> they have to go through all records in a surname, it may be of help to find
> a person when the exact year isn't known.
> Joan


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