The practice of renaming documents, characterizing them as purely administrative/for exclusive internal use, and reducing the period of time the agency must keep them — which is described in the story below — is not unique to the Jacksonville, Florida sheriff's office.

These practices create impediments to public access here as in Florida. It is why an "essential relationship" between Kentucky's open records law and its laws governing record's retention and management was statutorily recognized in 1994. KRS 61.8715.

Recently, the Kentucky Libraries, Archives, and Records Commission received a request from the Kentucky State Police to establish a retention period for a newly created record designated a "counseling/specific contact report."

The report was described as an "internal document" used "to internally document corrective counseling of behaviors or actions recognized by a supervisor that do not rise to the level of a violation of the standards of conduct or the need for progressive discipline and do not warrant inquiry, investigation, or discipline in either the sworn or civilian systems."

KSP requested a one year retention for the reports. The official representing KSP explained that these records were not treated as public records and were therefore routinely destroyed at will.

As a member of the committee that advises the State Libraries, Archives, and Records Commission, I explained to him that they were, in fact public records, regardless of the "use" to which they are put, and that until a retention period was established for them, they had to be retained permanently.

I expressed concern about the brevity of the proposed retention.

My opposition to the recognition of the new records series, and approval of a one year retention, was based on my concern that the public would be unable to verify patterns of conduct that developed over time — such as occasional tardiness that was a prelude to later unexplained and unauthorized absences — if the records were destroyed after a year.

I was also concerned that the public would be unable to confirm that all KSP staff that engage in the same contact receive uniform scrutiny and treatment. Finally, I was concerned about subjectivity of assessments of what actions or behaviors rise to the level of violations of standards of conduct.

Because personnel files maintained by KSP — which include disciplinary records — are retained until five years after the employee leaves, I strongly believed that a one year retention for "counseling/specific contact reports" was too short.

My objections were overridden by the majority's vote and the new series, with a one year retention, was approved by the Commission one week later.

It was not the first time law enforcement officials renamed a disciplinary records series or sought a reduction in the period of time that disciplinary records must be retained.

"Internal Affairs files," "use of force files," "response to resistance files." These are just a few of the designations used to identify the records generated in the course of an investigation into allegations of misconduct leveled against law enforcement officers.

While serving on the Commission as the attorney general's proxy from 2000 to 2016, as well as on the advisory committee to the present, I fought this battle several times, sometimes successfully.

My most recent effort was unsuccessful. Like Florida, less information will now be available in KSP's disciplinary records as a result of the Commission's approval of the new records series and its one year retention.