It varies by state in the US (what doesn't?), but most states do have a clause in their FOIA law that says something along those lines as well. It may be completely ambiguous ("at cost", fees must be "reasonable", etc.) or it can be more specific ("may not exceed the hourly salary of the lowest paid employee who can do the work", etc.).
Of course the former is pretty worthless, especially if the state doesn't outline any formal appeals process - you'd have to actually sue them for the records, which is rarely going to end up being cheaper. It also doesn't mean that the actual cost couldn't end up being insane. If no one has access to perform that particular query or knows how to get that data it could involve requesting a custom report from whomever developed and/or maintains the system. No one is reasonably going to pay IBM's hourly rate to write a report for them...
And don't forget if their DBA team is all consultants, "at cost" for the state just included that DBA's time, putting together the scope of work for the client, writing the proposal, management approval, etc. Generating a PDF of all tables and all columns in a presentation-level format could definitely cost the state $2k.
I work for a company that has a lot of state consultants (>50% of the workforce) and our salaries are typically 2-2.5x our state counterparts, and most items of work that would take more than an hour or two will require at least one level of management approval on both sides.
Of course the former is pretty worthless, especially if the state doesn't outline any formal appeals process - you'd have to actually sue them for the records, which is rarely going to end up being cheaper. It also doesn't mean that the actual cost couldn't end up being insane. If no one has access to perform that particular query or knows how to get that data it could involve requesting a custom report from whomever developed and/or maintains the system. No one is reasonably going to pay IBM's hourly rate to write a report for them...