Request By:
Mr. William (Mack) Bushart
Property Valuation Administrator
Marshall County Courthouse
Benton, Kentucky 42025
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Earnest H. Collins of TVC Marketing Associates has appealed to the Attorney General pursuant to KRS 61.880 your denial of his request to inspect and copy a particular document in your custody.
In a letter to you, dated January 13, 1988, Mr. Collins made the following request:
I am requesting a copy of the tax roll of Jimmy L. Donald, in reference to Lot No. 171, Section B, Running Bear Subdivision, Marshall County, Kentucky, a plat of said subdivision being of record in Plat Book 5, Page 6, Slide 236, Marshall County Clerk's Office. Reference is hereby made to said plat for a more complete description, copy of plat is attached.
You replied to Mr. Collins in a letter dated January 13, 1988. You denied his request, advising him as follows:
There are twelve days beginning with the last Monday in May in which any taxpayer may look at the property assessments of his neighbors for comparison purposes [KRS 133.045(1)]. During this time you may file an appeal on your own property if you deem it assessed above fair market value [KRS 133.120(1)]. KRS 133.047(2) prohibits divulging property tax information to anyone for commercial or business gain.
Mr. Collins, this office bases our policy on release of information on the above statutes. We have not treated you any differently than any other taxpayer.
As a courtesy, however, if the party owning the property submits a release signed by him requesting that you receive this confidential information, I will honor his request.
Mr. Collins' letter of appeal was received by this office on February 2, 1988.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
KRS 61.878(1)(j) provides that among those public records which can be excluded from public inspection in the absence of a court order authorizing inspection are, "Public records or information the disclosure of which is prohibited or restricted or otherwise made confidential by enactment of the General Assembly."
The General Assembly by its enactment of KRS 133.047 (2) has placed some restrictions on the use of the information obtained from inspecting the property tax rolls. That statutory subsection provides as follows:
Any person inspecting a property tax roll shall do so in a manner not unduly interfering with the proper operation of the custodian's office and said person shall not use information obtained from the property tax roll (s) for commercial or business purposes unrelated to property valuation and assessment. (Emphasis supplied).
The statute clearly prohibits the use of information obtained from inspecting the property tax rolls for commercial or business purposes. See OAG 80-88 and OAG 79-220, copies of which are enclosed. As we said in OAG 78-549, copy enclosed, at page three, an enactment of the General Assembly is presumed valid unless clearly shown to be otherwise and only the courts may "make a statute inoperative on constitutional grounds."
From the material made available to this office, we cannot determine whether the information to be obtained from an inspection of the property tax rolls is to be used for commercial or business purposes. If that is the intended purpose of the information requested, however, then you properly denied the request pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(j) and KRS 133.047(2).
In your letter of denial you also cited KRS 133.045(1) relative to the time period during which the tax rolls must be opened for inspection. While that particular subsection sets forth a specific time frame during which the tax rolls must be made available for inspection, it does not prohibit the examination of those tax rolls at other reasonable times throughout the year. In addition, KRS 133.047(1) states in part that the property tax roll shall be available for public inspection during the regular working hours of the property valuation administrator.
Thus, if you denied the request to inspect the documents in question solely on the basis that the request was not made within the limited time frame set forth in KRS 133.045(1), then your decision was improper under the provisions of KRS 133.047(1) and KRS 61.872(1). The latter statute provides in part that all public records shall be open for public inspection unless they are subject to one of the statutory exceptions to public inspection.
It is, therefore, the opinion of the Attorney General that your denial of the request to inspect the property tax rolls was proper under KRS 61.878(1)(j) and KRS 133.047(2) if the information obtained from the inspection is to be used for commercial or business purposes. However, the request cannot be denied solely because it was not made during the specific time period set forth in KRS 133.045(1).
As required by statute a copy of this opinion is being sent to the requesting party, Mr. Earnest H. Collins. Either the requesting party or the public agency (the property valuation administrator) or both of you have the right to challenge the opinion in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882.