Request By:
Thomas W. Miller
Miller, Griffin & Marks, P.S.C.
Suite 700, Security Trust Building
Lexington, Kentucky 40507
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Carl T. Miller, Jr., Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General as to whether the Kentucky Medical Services Foundation, Inc. is a public agency for the purposes of the Open Records Law as defined in KRS 61.870.
Along with your request you supplied us with a number of documents including the Articles of Incorporation of KMSF, By-Laws of KMSF, the resolution regarding Medical Practice Plan adopted by the Board of Trustees of the University of Kentucky, the agreement between the University of Kentucky and KMSF dated July 7, 1978, the Department of Medicine Plan for distribution and use of professional income under the College of Medicine Medical Practice Plan, and Practice Agreement and Assignment that was signed by an M.D. employed by the University of Kentucky. In addition to considering these documents we have conferred with Mr. John C. Darsie and Ms. Gay M. Elste, Legal Counsel for the University of Kentucky, Mr. David Lester, Attorney for KMSF, you and your clients.
The Kentucky Medical Services Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit corporation organized under KRS Chapter 273 and as such is not a public agency under the Kentucky Open Records Law, KRS 61.870-61.884, unless it receives as much as 25% of its funding from state or local authority. Our attention has focused, therefore, on the question of whether KMSF receives any funding from state or local authority or as much as 25% of its total funding from state or local authority. KRS 61.870(1).
Our conclusion as to the facts in this matter is that KMSF does not receive any state or local governmental funding. The money received by KMSF is the clinical income derived from the services of physicians on the University of Kentucky's faculty in its College of Medicine, is collected by the university and remitted monthly to KMSF. Under the agreement between the university and KMSF, KMSF reimburses the university for expenses and disburses clinical income to faculty physicians on the basis of their services. The money is earned as medical service fees, is collected by the university, and is distributed by KMSF. The money does not at any time become public money so as to constitute funding by state or local authority.
It is our opinion that the Kentucky Medical Services Foundation, Inc. is not a public agency subject to the Open Records Law.