An astute reader of the Commonwealth Journal recently questioned the Pulaski County Fiscal Court's attempt to evade the open meetings law by creating a committee of less than a quorum of the fiscal court to discuss public business behind closed doors.

Pursuant to KRS 61.805(2)(g), the open meetings law applies in all particulars to "Any board, commission, committee, subcommittee, ad hoc committee, advisory committee, council, or agency, except for a committee of a hospital medical staff or a committee formed for the purpose of evaluating the qualifications of public agency employees, established, created, and controlled by a 'public agency' as defined in paragraph (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), or (h) of this subsection."

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=23043

A quorum of the committee — even a purely advisory committee — is based on the number of committee members and not the number of members of the agency that created it — e.g., a quorum of a seven member committee is 4 members even if the agency that created it consists of 10 members and its quorum is 6.

This statute has existed in the open meetings law since its enactment and is designed to prevent the very harm the reader described— avoidance of the open meetings law thru government by committee.

Any committee of a public agency is itself a separate public agency and must adhere to the open meetings law (supplemented by 2020 SB 150 during the state of emergency) by affording the public access to all meetings, adopting a regular meeting schedule, properly noticing special meetings, recording minutes of votes and actions taken, observing the requirements for conducting closed sessions, etc.

"Any other holding," the Kentucky Supreme Court held in 1987, "would clearly thwart the intent of the law." Examining the preamble to the 1974 law, the Court went on to declare "that the Kentucky Legislature considered that the right of the public to be informed transcends any loss of efficiency."

https://casetext.com/case/lexington-herald-leader-v-univ-of-ky

An agency that fails to acknowledge these well established principles runs the very serious risk of violating the open meetings laws.