Request By:
[NO REQUESTBY IN ORIGINAL]
Opinion
Opinion By: Albert B. Chandler III, Attorney General; Amye L. Bensenhaver, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The question presented in this appeal is whether the Logan County Board of Education violated the Open Records Act in responding to Katherine Hart's request for information relating to teachers employed in the Logan County School System since 1984. For the reasons that follow, we find that the Board's response, although apparently not issued within three days of receipt of the request, was in all substantive respects consistent with the provisions of the Act.
In her letter, dated January 10 but postmarked January 19, Ms. Hart requested that the Board provide her with the following information:
1. The names of every person that [sic] has taught in the Logan County School System from 1984 through 1998-1999 term[;]
2. Please designate the type of certification held when hired; if not certified, give date became certified, subjects certified for teaching, kind of degree held, years of teaching experience when hired, and the number of years employed by the Logan County School System, beginning and ending salary.
Ms. Hart characterized her request as a "Kentucky Open Letter request."
On January 27, 1999, Superintendent David L. Webb responded to Ms. Hart's request, advising her as follows:
You have asked for personnel information dating back to 1984. Please be advised that all public records, except those excluded by KRS 61.870 to KRS 61.884, are available for public inspection in the Office of the superintendent during regular office hours. Mr. Danny Harris is the official custodian of records and, upon request, will make arrangements for your review. Upon inspection, you may also request copies of documents not exempted by the terms of KRS 61.878. When copies are requested, Mr. Harris may require a written request. There will be a reasonable fee for making copies of nonexempt public records which will not exceed the actual cost of reproduction, including the costs of the media and any mechanical processing cost incurred by the school district, but not including staff costs. In conclusion, we will continue to cooperate with you in every reasonable manner to accommodate your requests for information.
This appeal followed.
In a supplemental response submitted to this office, Superintendent Webb elaborated on the Board's position. He explained:
. Mrs. Katherine Hart wrote a letter to Mr. Lynn Dawson, Board Chairman, postmarked January 19, 1999 asking for a wide variety of information regarding personnel actions for the past fifteen (15) years. She termed her query a "Kentucky Open Letter request".
. Within a few days, Mr. Dawson delivered her letter to the administrative office of the board. A response was drafted and mailed on January 27, 1999.
. There was no denial of an open records request. To the contrary, specific instructions were provided for Mrs. Hart to access public information. The school system does not maintain one specific document that contains all the requested information. Part of this information would be contained within various board and personnel documents over the past fifteen (15) year period, such as the minutes of the board of education. These documents are available for Mrs. Hart to review.
In closing, Superintendent Webb expressed the view that the Logan County Board of Education's response was "in compliance with KRS 61.870 to 61.884." We agree.
In OAG 89-45, this office recognized that the Open Records Act "[does] not require public agencies to carry out research or compile information to conform to a given request." OAG 89-45, p. 3, citing OAG 79-547 and OAG 83-333. There the requester sought the addresses of individuals whose names he had previously secured. We characterized this request as "a request for research to be performed, rather than for inspection of reasonably identified public records, " noting that the public agency from which the records were sought "had no compiled record corresponding to the request." See also 95-ORD-27 and 96-ORD-53. We believe that this opinion is dispositive of the present appeal.
Ms. Hart requested the names of every person who has taught in the Logan County School System from 1984 to the present, the type of certification each person held, and if not certified the date the person became certified, the subjects each person was certified to teach, the kind of degree each person held, the number of years of teaching experience each person had when hired, the number of years each person was employed by the school system, and each person's beginning and ending salary. As in OAG 89-45, the Board has no compiled record corresponding to the request. To require the Board to compile information to conform to Ms. Hart's request would be tantamount to reading an additional duty into the Open Records Act which the Act does not mandate.
For purposes of contrast, we examine 94-ORD-121. In that decision the requester sought copies of records which, according to the agency's own Records Retention and Disposal Schedule, were required to be compiled and separately maintained in a designated area of the agency. Thus, the records had already been compiled for purposes of satisfying the agency's records retention obligation. No additional research needed to be performed. The records had only to be retrieved from the designated area, and produced for inspection. We concurred with the requester in his view that the agency had improperly equated an obligatory search with nonobligatory research. 94-ORD-121, p. 7.
Because Ms. Hart requests that information be compiled to conform to her request, that request is more closely akin to a request for research to be performed. Clearly, records exist which, when identified and the information extracted, satisfy her request. The Logan County Board of Education would be required to expend hours, if not days, reviewing records from the past fifteen years in order to extract the information. In our view, however, the Board is not required to do so.
It is enough, in such cases, to make available for inspection and copying records which contain the information sought. As we noted at pages 4 and 5 of OAG 86-51:
Where a person requests that a list of material be supplied or that he be furnished with broad categories of information, that person should be afforded the opportunity to expend his own time and effort in digging out the information which has not to date been compiled unless that information may be excluded from public inspection under KRS 61.878. Thus, if the records and materials requested, although not compiled in any kind of a list form, are nevertheless in the possession of the public agency, the files containing those public records should be made available for public inspection in order that the requesting party may attempt to secure the particular documents and records with which he is concerned.
Even more to the point, we have observed:
KRS 61.872 provides that all public records (except as otherwise provided) shall be open for inspection. If there were records or compilations accumulating the information . . . requested, they would have to be disclosed. The issue here is not whether the request is a blanket one, or whether it is specific[.] The issue is whether there exist records or compilations that would satisfy [the] request.
Obviously information documenting, in bits and pieces, facts [the requester] is attempting to determine, will appear among the many records that are generated through the state payroll process and other records through time. Public agencies, however, are neither required nor directed by open records provisions to devote the taxpayer's time to reviewing voluminous records in order to compile information to satisfy a particular information request. The legislature has recognized this by providing only that records must be made available for inspection, not that information must be extracted and compiled.
OAG 88-79, p. 3.
Had the information which Ms. Hart requested been compiled in a public record, she would be entitled to inspect and copy it. Because it has not been compiled, she must expend her own energy to extract the information that is responsive to her request. For these reasons, we conclude that the Logan County Board of Education's response to Ms. Hart's request was substantively correct.
We note, in closing, that the Board's response may have exceeded by a few days the three day statutory deadline for agency response found in KRS 61.880(1). Superintendent Webb indicates that Ms. Hart's letter was postmarked January 19, but does not state on what day it was received. Six business days elapsed between the date it was sent and the date the Board's response was issued. This procedural violation, if indeed there was one, is mitigated by the fact that the request was directed to the Board's chairman, Lynn Dawson, rather than to its official custodian of records, Danny Harris, thus occasioning some delay. Nevertheless, we urge the Board to review KRS 61.880(1) to insure that future responses conform to the Open Records Act.
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General should be notified of any action in circuit court, but should not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.