This review of the June 18 special meeting of the Kentucky Retirement Systems Investment Review Committee by the Kentucky Public Retirees provides an opportunity to clarify two of the finer points of the open meetings law.

The first has to do with "meetings" at which a quorum of the members are not present.

In opinions dating back to 1984, the attorney general has recognized that in the absence of a quorum, a public agency "cannot convene and transact business." If there is no quorum, there is no meeting.

KRS 61.810(1) states that "all meetings of a quorum of the members of a public agency at which public business is discussed or at which any action is taken, shall be public meetings, open to the public at all times."

The presence of a quorum is a prerequisite to conducting a public meeting.

The committee is itself a discrete public agency for open meetings purposes, and a quorum of the committee is based on its total membership and not on the membership of the public body (presumably the Board of Trustees of the KRS) that created it.

The committee acknowledged that no business could be conducted in the absence of a quorum. The ensuing discussion had no legal effect.

Because the failed meeting was not a secret meeting of a quorum, or a series of less than quorum meetings attended by members collectively constituting a quorum held for the purpose of avoiding the requirements of the open meetings law, the committee cannot be said to have violated the law.

The acting committee chair's "request that language discussing the investment approved at the May meeting with MiddleGround . . . be made stronger regarding the due diligence process in choosing this company and covering the conflict-of-interest investigations that were done to document very clearly that this selection was outside any political considerations," as well as the presentations by three new investment managers, which were to have been approved at the meeting, were a legal nullity. For the committee to assume otherwise would be a grave mistake.

The same request and the same presentations will presumably be made at a future committee meeting attended by a quorum of the committee's members.

The second point relates to the possible reason a quorum was not present.

The post states that the terms of three of the four members not present expire on June 19, 2019, but that those present were assured that new appointees are "in queue."

Whatever this means, the open meetings law is clear that "the whole membership of the body is counted in determining the legal quorum. Where vacancies occur, the total number entitled to membership must be counted and not just the remaining members."

Perhaps not the issue presented here, but useful knowledge where the issue of the presence of a quorum is presented and vacancies exist.

Forewarned is forearmed.