Request By:
Mr. Joe Lamb
Vice-President, Operations
Kentucky Publishing Company
722-730 West First Street
Morehead, Kentucky 40351
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Cicely D. Jaracz, Assistant Attorney General
This office is in receipt of your request for an opinion pursuant to the Open Meetings Law, KRS 61.805 et seq.
Specifically, you indicate that Morehead State University (MSU) is in the process of selecting a new president. Because of this process, the MSU Board of Regents called a special session on November 27, 1983 to discuss the search for a new president. Six minutes into the meeting, a motion was made and unanimously carried to go into closed session to discuss "personnel and legal matters." Three hours later the Board emerged and unanimously voted, without public debate or discussion, to establish two committees that will be involved in the search for a new president. One committee is comprised of the Board of Regents. The second committee is comprised of five regents and four at-large members. However, no MSU personnel were named to either committee.
The situation herein appears analogous to OAG 83-455, (copy enclosed), wherein this office held that the Fayette County Board of Education improperly closed a session in order to discuss the process for selecting a new superintendent. The reason stated for the holding of impropriety was that although KRS 61.810(6) allows closed sessions to discuss "appointment, discipline, or dismissal of an individual employee" it is "designed to protect the reputation of individual persons and shall not be interpreted to permit discussion of general personnel matters in secret." In other words, discussion in closed session is specifically limited to discussions pertaining to the appointment, discipline, or dismissal of a specific individual.
The MSU Board of Regents is a public agency subject to the Open Meetings Law pursuant to KRS 61.805(2). As such, it correctly followed the procedures for going into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.815. However, it is the opinion of the Attorney General that the meeting held on November 27, 1983 wherein the selection process for a new president was discussed in closed session was improper insofar as no individual was involved to whom reputation damage might occur.
You additionally ask what penalties are set forth for violations of the Open Meetings Law. KRS 61.830 directs that:
"Any rule, resolution, regulation, ordinance or other formal action of a public agency without substantial compliance with the requirements of KRS 61.810, 61.815, 61.820 and 61.825 shall be voidable by a court of competent jurisdiction. A certificate by the clerk or secretary of said public agency at said meeting that the requirements of KRS 61.810, 61.815, 61.820 and 61.825 were complied with shall be prima facie and admissive in any court of competent jurisdiction."
Furthermore, KRS 61.991(1) provides that:
"(1) Any person who knowingly attends a meeting of any public agency covered by KRS 61.805 to 61.850 of which he is a member, not held in accordance with the provisions of KRS 61.805 to 61.850 shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars ($100)."
The state circuit courts have jurisdiction to enforce the Open Meetings Law. KRS 61.845.