Request By:
Mr. Robert McNemar
Managing Editor
The Advocate-Messenger
Danville, Kentucky 40422
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Carl T. Miller, Jr., Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General as to whether the Fort Logan Hospital Board meetings are required to be open to the public under the Kentucky Open Meetings Law. KRS 61.805-61.850. You state that the hospital administrator and the board attorney state that the open meetings law does not apply to the hospital board. They rely on OAG 75-402 which deals with comprehensive care centers.
In OAG 75-402 we pointed out that under the statute a comprehensive care center could be operated by a board selected from the community or could be operated by a nonprofit corporation. In the latter case the board of the corporation would not be subject to the open meetings law.
You state in your letter that the Fort Logan Hospital is supported by taxes from the community it serves. We assume from this that the Fort Logan Hospital is a hospital created and supported by a hospital district under KRS 216.310-216.360. This statute provides how a hospital district may be formed and operated, provides that it be governed by a district board and shall be a taxing district. Since it is created by statute it is a public agency subject to the open meetings law.
KRS 61.805 defines a public agency as one which is created by or pursuant to statute, executive order, local ordinance or resolution or other legislative act. A hospital district created under the above cited statute is therefore a public agency within the meaning of the open meetings law. The meetings of a board of a hospital district shall, of course, be allowed the subject matter exemptions in the open meetings law, KRS 61.810. These exemptions have to do with the purchase of real property, collective bargaining, personnel matters and litigation. When such subject matter is under discussion the meeting may be closed. KRS 61.815.