Request By:
Larry Tyus
400 South 6th Street
Louisville, KY 40202Tina Heavrin
Special Counsel to Mayor
Jefferson County Fiscal Court
527 West Jefferson Street, 4th Floor
Louisville, KY 40202William P. O'Brien
Office of Jefferson County Attorney
532 Court Place, Suite 1001
Louisville, KY 40202Sara V. Parks
Administrator of Finance
Department of Finance and Budget
611 West Jefferson Street
Louisville, KY 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Albert B. Chandler III, Attorney General; James M. Ringo, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The question presented in this appeal is whether the actions of the Jefferson County Fiscal Court, Finance and Administration Department, now the Louisville -- Jefferson County Metro Government, Metro Finance (Metro Finance) , relative to the open records request of Larry Tyus for certain records and information relating to the agency's financial transactions with Correctional Medical Services, Inc., violated the Open Records Act.
By letter dated January 11, 2003, Mr. Tyus made the following request for information under the Open Records Act:
1. All checks written on the account in the name of Jefferson Co. Fiscal Court or Jefferson Co. Metro Corrections on a monthly [basis] from Jan.00, 02 until present day pertaining to billing from Correctional Medical Services in St. Louis, Mo.
2. Any contractual agreements between the above name[d] parties and Correctional Medical Service Corporate Headquarter. Include in this agreement should be any and all documents that states the cost of Correctional Medical Services from providing the staffing service as well as any medical services that may be agree[d] on.
3. The rules by which Correctional Medical Services was granted this contract under and any other conditions that should include the consequences and liability of this contract.
4. Any other records pertaining to the operation and finances of the jail, income or expenses pertaining to [doing] business with Correctional Medical Service.
By letter dated January 28, 2003, Sara V. Parks, Administrator of Finance, Metro Finance, responded to Mr. Tyus's request, indicating she had reviewed his records request and advised:
In accordance with KRS 61.872, you are entitled to inspect disclosable public records. These records must be identified with reasonable specificity, to allow the location of such documents. With regard to items # 2, 3 and 4 of your request, you have made an overly broad request, as it relates to "any" and "all" records.
With regard to the contract and award qualifications requested in items # 2 and 3, we are in the process of locating and compiling these documents; we anticipate that several may be available by Monday, February 3, 2003.
Please contact me at 574-3211 to make arrangements to view the records set forth above. If you then wish to obtain copies, they are available at a cost of $ .10 per page.
Apparently, prior to receipt of Ms. Parks's response, dated January 28, 2003, Mr. Tyus initiated the instant appeal. A copy of Mr. Tyus's letter of appeal was received by this office on January 28, 2003.
We are asked to determine whether the actions of the Metro Government, Metro Finance, violated the Open Records Act. For the reasons that follow, we find the response of the agency was in substantial compliance with the requirements of the Act.
As indicated by its response, the agency has agreed to make available for Mr. Tyus's inspection those records that could reasonably be identified in his request. From its response, this would appear to include the records in numbered paragraph one (All checks written on the account in the name of Jefferson Co. Fiscal Court or Jefferson Co. Metro Corrections on a monthly basis from Jan.00, 02 until present day pertaining to billing from Correctional Medical Services in St. Louis, Mo.); the records in numbered paragraphs 2 and 3 (the contract and award qualifications relating to the agency's contractual agreement with Correctional Medical Services). With regard to the records in numbered paragraphs 2 and 3, Metro Finance indicated that it was in the process of locating and compiling those records and anticipated those records would be available by Monday, February 3, 2003. It denied those portions of Mr. Tyus's requests in numbered paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, which it described as "an overly broad request, as it relates to 'any' and 'all' records."
We address first the agency's denial of a portion of Mr. Tyus's request as being overly broad. This office has previously criticized open-ended-any-and-all records-that-relate-type requests relating to a particular subject(s). 96-ORD-101; 99-ORD-14. In the latter decision, we recognized:
A request for any and all records that contain a name, a term, or a phrase is not a properly framed open records request, and . . . it generally need not be honored. Such a request places an unreasonable burden on the agency to produce often incalculable numbers of widely dispensed and ill-defined records.
In 94-ORD-12, this office articulated a standard for determining whether a requester had described the records sought with sufficient precision. At page 3 of that decision, we observed:
The purpose and intent of the Open Records Act is to permit the "free and open examination of public records. " KRS 61.871. However, this right of access is not absolute. As a precondition to inspection, a requesting party must identify with "reasonable particularity" those documents which he or she wishes to review. OAG 89-81; OAG 91-58; OAG 92-56. Thus, if a public agency is to provide access to public documents, the requester must identify them with sufficient clarity to enable the agency to locate and make them available. If the requester cannot describe the documents he wishes to inspect with sufficient specificity, there is no requirement that the public agency conduct a search for such documents.
If a requester cannot describe the documents he wishes to inspect with sufficient specificity, there is no requirement that a public agency conduct a search for such material. 95-ORD-68.
However, in the instant appeal, we believe that Mr. Tyus's description as to the requested records was sufficiently specific to enable the agency to identify and locate at least some records responsive to his request. The agency has agreed to make available for Mr. Tyus's inspection those records and information relating to the agency's financial transactions and its contractual arrangements with Correctional Medical Services, Inc. Accordingly, Mr. Tyus, if he has not already done so, should inspect these records. If these records do not satisfy his request, he may wish to resubmit his request and describe with more precision as to what type record he is seeking in this regard. Thus, we conclude that the agency's response substantially conformed with the requirements of the Open Records Act and prior decisions of this office.
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.