Request By:
Mr. Vic Hellard, Jr.
Director
Legislative Research Commission
State Capitol
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General on a matter pertaining to the Kentucky Open Records Law, KRS 61.870-61.884. Your request letter presents the following statement of facts and question:
"A number of state professional and occupational boards are conducting business in buildings which are not governmental facilities. Some apparently use a room in a private residence as an office while others use space made available to them in private offices.
The following question has arisen: 'Is there any problem in regard to storing public documents on private premises and are there any precautions that must be taken to protect such documents.'"
It is our opinion that there is no statutory prohibition against a state professional and occupational board having its office in a private residence. For example, Assistant Attorney General K. Gail Leeco informs us that the Board of Physical Therapy lists as its official office the residence of Nancy B. Brinly, Executive Director, Board of Physical Therapy, 1.614 Dunbarton Wynde, Louisville, Kentucky 40205. The office is so listed in the State Directory. This practice does not violate any state statute or regulation.
KRS 61.876 provides, in part, as follows:
"(1) Each public agency shall adopt rules and regulations in conformity with the provisions of KRS 61.870-61.884 to provide full access to public records, to protect records from damage and disorganization, to prevent excessive disruption of its essential functions, to provide assistance and information upon request and to insure efficient and timely action in response to application for inspection, and such rules and regulations shall include, but shall not be limited to:
(a) the principal office of the public agency and its regular office hours;
(b) the title and address of the official custodian of the public agency's records; . . .
* * *
"(2) Each public agency shall display a copy of its rules and regulations pertaining to public records in a prominent location accessible to the public.
"(3) The Executive Department for Finance and Administration may promulgate uniform rules and regulations for all state administrative agencies. "
We interpret this statute to mean that if a public agency has not adopted its own rules and regulations, the uniform regulations adopted by the Department for Finance apply to such agency. The administrative regulations adopted by the Department for Finance, 200 KAR 1:020(E) include the following:
Section 3(2) "The inspection of public records of state administrative agencies shall in all cases be made in the presence of an employee of the agency, on premises occupied by the agency having custody of the records, during the usual office hours of the particular offices or other organizational units having physical possession of the records. The official custodian of the records of each state administrative agency, and of each administrative subdivision of the agency, shall be responsible for the assignment of agency employees, as a duty in addition to their usual duties, to assist persons applying to inspect the public records of the agency and to insure protection of the records against damage and disorganization. "
Reading the above quoted statutes and regulation together, we believe that the records of an agency such as the Board of Physical Therapy may be kept in the home of the Executive Director of the Board when the residence is designated as the official office of the agency, that the responsibility for the keeping of the records is placed upon the Executive Director as the official custodian and that no further precautions are necessary. The listing of the address in the State Directory and in the Louisville Telephone Directory serves as sufficient notice as to where the records may be found and inspected by the public. Of course, the Division of Occupations and Professions in the Department for Finance could ask the Department to adopt an additional regulation on this matter if it sees fit to do so.