Sometimes public records are also police records. Some police records, for obvious reasons, are not available to the public.  You would no doubt get a polite “no” if you asked the police for the names and addresses of confidential informants.

But citizens sometimes need copies of police records — for instance, an accident or burglary report to support a claim made to an insurance company. According to police, the department releases about 19,000 reports each year to individuals and insurance companies.

Like all public agencies, the police are entitled to charge a fee to offset the time and cost of making copies.

County police were charging a flat $10. Other county agencies charge 50 cents a page. The fee difference for a four-page report is obvious.

That has changed. After Patuxent Publishing Co., the publisher of this newspaper, called attention to this discrepancy, county officials said they would lower the per-page cost of police records to 50 cents.

Meanwhile, another unresolved open-records issue in the county is the requirement that those seeking police records put in writing why they want them.

State law prohibits asking that question of someone requesting public records. Yet the explain-why-in-writing requirement by police is used in other Maryland counties besides Baltimore County.

In Harford County, a police records manager there said, a tiered system is in place — some people get everything, some get partial information and some get nothing. Why you want the information is apparently what determines what tier you go on.

This implies police records are public to some and not to others. That’s bad policy.

We think county officials should bring police records request policies into line with the state’s Public Information Act, which prohibits the “why” question.

Public records, even if kept by police, should be accessible to the public. The public means everyone.

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