Request By:
Mr. H. Gene Taylor
Records Custodian
Department of Personnel
Capitol Annex
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Michael L. Judy, attorney, has appealed to the Attorney General under KRS 61.880(2) your denial of his request to inspect certain public records in your custody. The records are described as the recommendations made by the various departments concerning possible inequities and/or disparities which have resulted from the June 16, 1982 restructuring of the state classification and pay plans. In your letter, dated July 21, 1982, denying the request you based your position on the exception provided by KRS 61.878(1)(h) -- preliminary recommendations and preliminary memoranda in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended.
In order to properly consider and rule on this appeal, we requested, by letter dated July 29, 1982, that you send us a copy of a departmental report representative of the reports you received from the various departments of state government. In response to our request Ms. Dee Maynard, Commissioner, Department of Personnel, in your absence from the office, sent us a copy of the report of the Department for Human Resources consisting of 81 pages.
On receipt of the above mentioned speciman report we found it to consist of the following types of documents:
Memorandum from Director of Office of Personnel Management, Department for Human Resources, to the Commissioner of the Departement for Personnel.
Memorandum from Commissioner, Department for Social Insurance, to Director of Office of Personnel Management.
Position descriptions of named employees.
Letter from employee to Commissioner, Department of Personnel.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
It is the opinion of the Attorney General that departmental reports to the Commissioner of Personnel are exempt from the mandatory requirement of public inspection under the Kentucky Open Records Law, KRS 61.870-61.884, by the statutory exemption you designated in your response to Mr. Judy, KRS 61.878(1)(h). Also, letters from individual employees to the Commissioner of Personnel are exempt under KRS 61.878(1)(g) -- correspondence with private individuals.
The documents in the report are clearly intra-office memoranda in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended to the Secretary, Department for Human Resources, by commissioners of departments under the Human Resources' Cabinet. As such, they fall under the exception (h). The fact that they are transmitted to the Department of Personnel as part of the departmental report does not remove their exempt status. The transmittal to the Department of Personnel is in accordance with KRS 61.878(4) which provides as follows:
"The provisions of this section shall in no way prohibit or limit the exchange of public records or the sharing of information between public agencies when the exchange is serving a legitimate governmental need or is necessary in the performance of a legitimate government function."
As directed by statute, we are sending a copy of this opinion to the requester, Mr. Judy, who has the right to challenge it in court as provided by KRS 61.880(5).