Opinion
Opinion By: Andy Beshear,Attorney General;Taylor Payne,Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The question presented in this appeal is whether Kentucky State Penitentiary ("KSP") violated the Open Records Act when it denied an inmate's request for records on the basis that the inmate failed to provide a Cash Paid Out ("CPO") form with his request as required by Department of Corrections Policies and Procedures ("CPP") 6.1. We rely on 08-ORD-242 to find that KSP did not violate the Open Records Act because requiring an inmate to submit a CPO with an open records request corresponds to a custodian's authority under Kentucky Revised Statute (KRS) 61.874 and a correctional institution's discretion to create policies to ensure safety, security and operation of institution.
On November 9, 2016, Brandon Bruin, an inmate at KSP, requested to inspect "[one] copy of activity log on 8/27/2013 3rd shift done by c/o Franklin; [one] copy of activity log for (officer) on Oct. 20, 2016 first shift; constant watch log for Aug 1, 2016. All mental health notes from July 2016 til Nov. 1, 2016[.]" On November 11, 2016, Melissa Edmonds, Administrative Assistant with the Medical Department, denied Bruin's request, stating, in part:
Your medical records are available to you at a fee of $ .10 per copy. You must have the money on your account. You will need to send a completed CPO with your request. Once this has been received and Inmate Accounts gives a favorable response, your request will be handled in a timely manner.
On November 16, 2016, Bruin appealed KSP's denial of his request to this office. He asserts that he had money in his prison account to pay for the requested records. KSP provided Bruin with a supplemental response on November 30, 2016, in which it indicated that the records Bruin requested constituted 33 pages for a total of $ 3.30. KSP informed Bruin that his request was denied because he did not submit a CPO form as required by CPP 6.1 and not due to insufficient funds in his inmate account. KSP also informed Bruin that it would provide the requested records to Bruin upon submission of a CPO form.
In its reply to this office concerning Bruin's appeal, KSP asserts that CPP 6.1 was promulgated to authorize a withdrawal of funds from an inmate's account through the use of a CPO form. According to KSP, use of the CPO form "prevents unauthorized deductions from the inmate's accounts through forgery[,] . . . [and] prevents an inmate from obtaining record and then denying that he requested them, which caus[es] a waste of time and expense for the institution." KSP submits that this "is a method of insuring prepayment in a prison setting without subterfuge and to alleviate control issues because of funds being misappropriated from another inmate account."
KRS 61.874(1) provides, in part, that when copies of public records are requested, "the custodian may require a written request and advance payment of the prescribed fee[.]" Furthermore, this office has routinely recognized that the Department of Corrections is afforded broad discretion in matters related to the safety, security and operation of its institutions. 08-ORD-242; 04-ORD-004. In 08-ORD-242, we affirmed KSP's denial of an inmate's open records request on the basis that the inmate failed to submit a signed and verified CPO with the request. We determined that the requirement to submit a CPO does not interfere with an inmate's statutory right to obtain copies of nonexempt public records and corresponds to KSP's authority under KRS 61.874(1) to require advance payment and KSP's discretion to create policies with respect to advance payments that maintain order and security in the institutional setting. In our opinion, 08-ORD-242 controls the issue raised in this appeal and a copy of that decision is attached hereto. Accordingly, we find that KSP did not violate the Open Records Act when it denied Bruin's open records request on the basis that Bruin failed to submit a CPO form with his request. 1
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General must be notified of any action in circuit court, but should not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 We decline to address Bruin's allegations of fraud and nepotism within KSP as they are outside the scope of this open records appeal and are not relevant to his claim that KSP violated the Open Records Act.