Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway,Attorney General;James M. Herrick,Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The question presented in this appeal is whether the Kentucky State Police (KSP) violated the Open Records Act in its disposition of Joshua Powell's request for information concerning citations written by Trooper Jason York. For the reasons that follow, we find no violation of the Act.
Mr. Powell's initial request, dated October 9, 2015, was for the following:
. Total number of citations issued by Jason York from 1/1/2005 to present. To include total number per year listed in KYOPS of citations issued by Jason York.
. Total number of citations indicated in the KSP MAMMS system which were issued by Jason York from 1/1/2005 to present.
. Difference in citations listed for Jason York compared from KYOPS to KSP MAMMS from 1/1/2005 to present.
On October 19, 2015, Mr. Powell made a second request, which duplicated the first except for deleting the second sentence of the first item and the entirety of the third item.
The KSP's response to the initial request, issued October 14, 2015, by Cody Weber of the Legal Services Branch, stated:
Please be advised that the Open Records Act does not statutorily obligate an agency to honor a request for information as opposed to a request for a specifically described public record. Within the Office of the Attorney General's 87-84 opinion it states that the primary impact of the Open Records Act is to make records available for inspection and copying and not to require the gathering and supplying of information. Therefore your request for information is denied.
On October 22, 2015, KSP Records Custodian Emily M. Perkins replied to the October 19 request, reiterating the paragraph from Mr. Weber's letter and further stating:
In addition, the Office of the Attorney General held in 01-ORD-158 that the agency to which a request for nonexistent statistical reports was directed properly denied the request because "a requester does not have a right to require that statistics be compiled if the statistics requested do not already exist." 01-ORD-158, p. 3, citing OAG 76-375, p. 3; accord, 01-ORD-121; 01-ORD-131; 03-ORD-200.
We find no error in the KSP's response.
Requests for information are outside the scope of open records law, and an agency is not obligated to honor a request for information under the law. 02-ORD-88; KRS 61.870 et seq. The Kentucky Open Records Act addresses requests for records, not requests for information. 03-ORD-028. In 95-ORD-131, the Attorney General observed:
Requests for information, as distinguished from records, are outside of the scope of the open records provisions. See, e.g., OAG 89-77. Our position is premised on the notion that "[o]pen records provisions address only inspection of records . . . [and] do not require public agencies or officials to provide or compile specific information to conform to the parameters of a given request.
Furthermore, a public agency is not required to compile a list or to create a record in response to an open records request. ( See 12-ORD-026 and authorities cited therein.) Accordingly, the KSP's response did not violate 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.