Request By:
Ms. Margaret Hockensmith
Executive Assistant
Bureau for Social Services
Department for Human Resources
275 East Main Street
Frankfort, Kentucky 40621
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
Attorney Angela Sherbo has appealed to the Attorney General under KRS 61.880 an alleged denial of inspection of certain public records in your custody. The records are described as unspecified documents consisting of
". . . all statistical compilations and/or all raw data from which the following information can be gleaned:
a. the number of children allegedly dependent, neglected or abused in the custody of the DHR pursuant to 'emergency' or 'temporary' custody orders for each of the years 1978, 1979, 1980 and for whatever months of 1981 such information is available;"
* * *
[We will not describe the entire request verbatim but will summarize it as follows:
b. the number of children (status offenders) in the custody of DHR under emergency orders for the years 1978 thru 1981;
c. the number of children who are law offenders in the custody of DHR under emergency orders for said years;
d. the length of time the child was in the custody of DHR on an emergency or temporary basis;
e. whether a court hearing was held on the emergency custody order and when;
f. how DHR custody was terminated;
g. whether the child was returned to the person exercising custody and control prior to the emergency or temporary custody or placed elsewhere.]
You responded to Ms. Sherbo's request in a letter dated August 27, 1981 by stating that to comply with her request would be impossible because there was no way to identify the children who were in DHR care based on temporary or emergency custody orders. You amended and elaborated that answer by another letter, dated September 4, 1981, in which you stated in effect that the information requested is in each case record which contains an official copy of the custody order or commitment as well as documents that would permit compiling most of the information. You went on to explain that --
"Although we know the status of every individual child, we do not have statistical information on all of the children as a group, and it would be burdensome, time consuming and very expensive to compile such statistical information. The only way this could be obtained would be by manual review of individual case records of children who had been in care since 1978. With the budget shortages as they are, we are forced to limit our responses for statistical information to those reports which are already programed for production.
"For you to review the case records containing the raw data would be an invasion of the privacy of the individual client and would thereore be exempt under KRS 61.878(1)(a)."
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
It is the opinion of the Attorney General that your response to Ms. Sherbo's request does not constitute a violation of the Kentucky Open Records Law, KRS 61.870-61.884.
In OAG 79-547 we discussed the difference between a request for information and a request for inspection of records and said: "The purpose of the Open Records Law is not to provide information but to provide access to public records which are not exempt by law." And in OAG 76-375 we said it is not necessary for an agency to make a list of items from its records if such a list does not already exist. When an agency has compiled statistics, the documents containing the statistics should be made available for public inspection and copying; but if no such compilation has been made, a requester cannot require the agency to make one.
In OAG 79-77 we said that a list which is compiled in a computer and does not contain information made confidential by law must be made available for inspection and a copy must be provided for a reasonable fee. This does not mean, however, that raw data of confidential information can be queried to extract statistical data by request. It is for the agency to decide if and when to create a body of statistical data.
We believe that your response to Ms. Sherbo was adequate under the Open Records Law when you stated that the requested statistics had not been compiled and, therefore, you could not comply with her request for the information she desired.
As directed by statute, we are sending a copy of this opinion to the requester, who has the right to challenge it in an action in the circuit court, KRS 61.880(5).