Request By:
Ms. Jo Ann Orick
Coordinator
Office of Communications
Jefferson County Public Schools
P.O. Box 18325
3332 Newburg Road
Louisville, Kentucky 40218
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
Orion Broadcasting, Inc., through its attorney, R. James Straus, has appealed pursuant to KRS 61.880 your denial of inspection of certain records in your custody. The records are described as follows:
(1) A certain document or memorandum dated August 7, 1979, between Dr. Reginald Green and Dr. David DeRuzzo, which is in the hands of Mr. Kyle Hubbard of the schools.
(2) Each item of correspondence, each report, and each additional document from a teacher's advisory group to the Superintendent concerning analysis of the Gould Hoffman reading program.
(3) Any standard contract or printed contract form used by the schools during the calendar years 1978, 1979 or 1980 for the purchase of instructional materials.
By letter dated May 12, 1980 you replied to Mr. John Rawlins, an employee of Orion Broadcasting, Inc., stating that you were denying access to items (1) and (2) because --
"These documents are inner-office correspondence between staff officials that gives memoranda in which opinions are expressed and recommendations are made. . . . [T]he documents you have requested are exempt from inspection pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(g)(h)."
Your response to the request for Item (3) was that the request "must be more specific."
It is the opinion of the Attorney General that by their very description Items (1) and (2) are in fact intra-office memoranda, preliminary drafts, preliminary recommendations and preliminary memoranda in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended. We therefore agree with you that items (1) and (2) are exempt from mandatory disclosure under KRS 61.878(1)(g) and (h).
We do not agree with you that the description of Item (3) is not specific enough to be complied with. To comply with Item (3) you need only to allow inspection of a contract form for instructional materials or of an actual contract for instructional materials with any contractor, one in which a standard contract form was used and which was executed in the years 1978, 1979 or 1980.
As we stated in OAG 79-128 and OAG 78-262, not all papers which are generated by an agency in carrying out its work are public records which are mandatorily required to be open for inspection. Records which are preliminary in nature when they are created do not lose their exempt status after final action is taken based upon the preliminary recommendations. They continue to be preliminary records.
As directed by statute, we are sending a copy of this opinion to the requester who has the statutory right to contest our opinion in court.