Request By:
J. Chase Forrester
Secretary
Jefferson County Community
Development Department
710 W. Main Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Edward D. Briscoe, Jr. has appealed to the Attorney General under KRS 61.880 your denial of inspection of certain public records in your custody. Mr. Briscoe described the records as follows: "The cost estimates a Rehabilitation Counselor (cost estimator) figures for individual loans to prospective applicants before loan approval is made to such applicants."
In your letter of response to Mr. Briscoe, dated May 26, 1981, you described the requested records as follows: "Records identifying individuals on the waiting list for loans from the Jefferson County Community Development Department and those individuals who have been assigned to rehabilitation counselors but where the contracts for the necessary improvements have not been signed." In that same letter you state that you are denying access to said records because they are exempt under KRS 61.878(1)(a) and (b) which reads as follows:
"(a) Public records containing information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy.
"(b) Records confidentially disclosed to an agency and compiled and maintained . . . . in conjunction with an application for a loan . . . . ."
In order that we may understand just what kind of records are being requested, we wrote you a letter of June 12, 1981 asking you to send us a specimen copy of the cost estimate report made by a cost estimator in your office. You sent us two documents: (1) Bid/ proposal conditions and work write-up sheets of the Jefferson County Community Development Department; (2) Specifications for the Jefferson County Community Development Department. We have also had two phone conversations with Mr. Charles S. Musson, attorney for a Development department. We conclude that the pertinent facts are as follows:
When an application for a loan is received by the department, a cost estimator visits the premises and goes through the house with the owner making a write-up of all the necessary repairs. This work write-up will serve as the specification/ write-up upon which contractors will submit their bids.
After the cost estimator returns to the office he makes a cost estimate of each item on the work write-up sheet to determine if the cost of the repairs will be within the loan limits of the development program. The estimator's figures are usually a little high in order to insure adequate funding. The estimate is comparable to an engineer's estimate on a public project which is kept confidential until after bids are received. It is this estimate which Mr. Briscoe has requested to inspect.
After the work write-up is completed, the Community Development staff personnel submits a copy of the work write-up and a list of approved and eligible contractors to the home owner. The home owner then has the option of negotiating the cost of the proposed work with one or more of the contractors of his choice or having the proposal advertised for public bids.
Once the home owner has obtained an estimate of the cost of the proposed work which is satisfactory to him, the cost estimate is submitted to the Community Development Department Loan Committee for approval or disapproval of the loan. If the application is approved, appropriate financial and mortgage documents are executed.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
It is the opinion of the Attorney General that the cost estimates a rehabilitation counsellor figures for individual loans to prospective applicants before loan approval is made to such applicants is exempt from the mandatory requirement of public inspection by KRS 61.878(1)(g)(h) because such papers are preliminary drafts, notes and memoranda in which opinions are expressed in the form of cost estimates. The privacy exemption in KRS 61.878(1)(a) may also apply, but the exemption provided by (b) which exempts information in connection with an application for a loan would not seem to cover a cost estimator's report. Since the cost estimate is preliminary to bidding and disclosure of the estimate would tend to influence the bids and corrupt the bidding process, we conclude that it is a preliminary record which is exempt from mandatory public disclosure.
It is, therefore, our opinion that you were entitled to deny Mr. Briscoe's request to inspect the cost estimates. You state that after a loan has been approved documents which do not contain private financial information are made available for public inspection. We believe that this sufficiently complies with the Open Records Law.
As directed by statute a copy of this opinion is being sent to the requester.