For anyone who doubts the importance and value of public records management and retention in Kentucky — as, apparently, did our last governor and some members of his staff — this is an important article.
Bear in mind that Kentucky law mirrors federal law in making Tampering with a Public Record a crime.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=19864
Also bear in mind that litigation by the Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet is currently pending in the Fayette Circuit Court to recover records relating to pardons issued by the last governor that were removed by members of his legal staff.
Regardless of whether these are nonexempt open records, they are public records that must be preserved under records retention schedules established by the Kentucky Libraries, Archives, and Records Commission as the historical record of the last administration.
(That administration attached so little value to the role of the Commission — formerly known as the Archives and Records Commission — that in 2018 it legislatively subordinated its role to that of the state Advisory Council on Libraries in name and membership.)
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/18rs/hb302.html
Anecdotal tales alone still echo through the now nearly empty halls of the once proud Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives of the efforts expended in recovering the gubernatorial records of another former governor — Wallace Wilkinson — who must have also labored under the misconception that the records of his administration belonged to him and not the Commonwealth.
And lest there be any lingering doubt, the General Assembly in 1994 recognized that statutes governing records retention and management are essentially related to statutes governing the open records law.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=23059
In all of these examples — state and federal — proper records preservation ensures records access and the public's right to know.
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