Request By:
Mr. Jim Allen
Grayson County News Gazette
208 South Main
P.O. Box 305
Leitchfield, Kentucky 42754
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General as to whether the meetings of the Board of the Grayson County Hospital Foundation are required to be open to the public under the Kentucky Open Meetings Law, KRS 61.805-61.850.
We have checked in the Office of the Secretary of State and found that the Grayson County Hospital Foundation, Inc., was incorporated as a non-profit corporation in 1956. As we held in OAG 78-395, a non-profit, non-stock private corporation is not a "public agency" as defined in KRS 61.805(2) and, therefore, is not covered by the Open Meeting Law.
In 1968 the General Assembly enacted KRS 216.310-216.360 providing for the creation of a hospital district by one or more counties with power to levy a tax and governed by a board appointed by the fiscal court. The Grayson County Hospital Foundation, Inc. obviously is not such a hospital district since it was in existence for 12 years before the statute was passed and is a non-profit corporation organized under KRS Chapter 273.
In Abernathy v. City of Irvine, Ky., 355 S.W.2d 159 (1961), it was held that a city or county may lease a hospital to a private organization to be operated as a hospital, that the operation of a hospital is not a required function of a city or county government, but that the operation of a hospital cannot be by partnership between a county and a private organization but must be under the control of one or the other. See OAG 78-302. In your letter you state:
"This building is leased to the Hospital Foundation from the Hospital District Board. This foundation organization is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the hospital."
Since the hospital is operated by the Grayson County Hospital Foundation, Inc., a corporation, we conclude that the meetings of the Foundation Board are not covered by the Open Meetings Law and need not be open to the public.