Request By:
Cyrus E. Greene, Administrator
Owen County Memorial Hospital
330 Roland Avenue
Owenton, Kentucky 40359
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Carl T. Miller, Jr., Assistant Attorney General
This is to clarify and update past opinions concerning the publishing of the financial statement of a county hospital. As administrator of the Owen County Memorial Hospital you have raised the question of whether the hospital must publish a paid advertisement in the local newspaper of the hospital's financial statement and what information must be included in the statement under the provisions of KRS 424.220.
In OAG 73-297 and 73-308 we concluded that a hospital board which is created by the county under KRS 216.010 etseq has the duty to publish the financial statement called for by KRS 424.220. In OAG 73-308 we also stated as follows:
"The statement should include the total amount of hospital fees or charges received; and it would be sufficient, we think, if the statement merely showed that the charges were received from patients without detailing the names of the patients. KRS 424.220 requires the statement to show the 'amount of funds collected and received, from what sources received . . .' (emphasis added.) From this language we believe the intent was to require a showing of the amount received and the different categories of sources such as grants donations, hospital charges or fees with the total amount shown for each source category. See Cooper v. Kentuckiana Citizens, Ky. 258 S.W.2d 695 (1953), 497. It may be noted that KRS 424.220 does not say that the statement must show 'from whom' the money was received. Elsewhere in the statute it does say that the statement must show 'to whom' the money is paid out."
KRS 424 220 was amended by the 1982 General Assembly and now reads as follows:
"Excepting officers of a city of the first class, a county containing such a city, a public agency of such a city or county, or a joint agency of such a city and county, or of a school district of such a city or county, and excepting officers of a city of the second class or an urban county government, every public officer of any school district, city, county, or subdivision or district less than a county, whose duty it is to collect, receive, have the custody, control or disbursement of public funds, and every officer of any board or commission of a city, county or district whose duty it is to collect, receive, have the custody, control or disbursement of funds collected from the public in the form of rates, charges or assessments for services or benefits, shall at the expiration of each fiscal year prepare an itemized, sworn statement of the funds collected, received, held or disbursed by him during the fiscal year just closed, unless he has complied with KRS 424.230. 1 The statement shall show in the aggregate by source, the amount of funds collected and received, and in the aggregate by payee, the amounts disbursed, or the amount of funds collected and received, from what sources received, the amount disbursed, the date of each disbursement, for what purpose expended, and to whom paid, except that only the totals of amounts paid to each individual as salary or commission and public utility bills need to be shown and except that the amount of salaries paid to all teachers shall be shown as a lump sum instructional expenditure for the school district and not by amount paid to individual teachers and the amount of salaries paid to all other employees of the board shall be shown as lump sum expenditures by category, including, but not limited to, administrative, maintenance, transportation, and food service; however the local board of education must have accessible a factual list of individual salaries for public scrutiny and the local board shall furnish by mail a factual list of individual salaries of its employees to a newspaper qualified under KRS 424.120 to publish advertisements for the district, which newspaper may then publish as a news item the individual salaries of school employees. The officer shall procure and include in or attach to the statement as a part thereof a certificate from the cashier or other proper officer of the banks in which the funds are or have been deposited during the past year, showing the balance, if any, of funds to the credit of the officer making the statement. The officer shall, except in a city electing to publish its audit in lieu of the financial statement pursuant to subsection (6) of Section 1 of this Act, within sixty (60) days after the close of the fiscal year, cause the statement to be published in full in a newspaper qualified under KRS 424.120 to publish advertisements for the city, county or district, as the case may be. Promptly after the publication is made, the officer shall file a written or printed copy of the advertisement with proof of publication, in the office of the county clerk of the county. Within thirty (30) days after publication, the officer shall file with the auditor of public accounts a copy of the newspaper containing the statement." (Emphasis added to show 1982 amendment.)
The 1982 amendment to KRS 424.220 makes it clear that the financial statement to be published by a public agency must show the aggregate amount received from each category of source, as we stated in OAG 73-308, and the aggregate paid to each payee, except in the case of school districts which may show only the amount of salaries paid to all teachers without showing the amount paid to individual teachers. A county hospital will have to show the amount paid to each individual employee, in the aggregate, not by itemized payments.
A public agency must pay the newspaper for publishing the financial statement according to the provisions of KRS 424 160.
Under the open records law, KRS 61.870 to 61.884, a newspaper may inspect the records of a public agency which are not exempt under KRS 61.878(1) and may publish such information obtained from the records, as it sees fit, as a news item
In summary, a county hospital must make a paid publication of the financial statement showing aggregate sums received according to category and aggregate sums paid out according to each payee. A newspaper may publish other information from the records of the hospital as news items without cost to the hospital.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 KRS 424.230 provides that an officer may elect to prepare and publish a monthly or quarterly financial statement in lieu of the annual statement required by KRS 424.220.