Attorney General: Subcommittee formed to find ed commissioner violated open-meetings law

(FRANKFORT, Ky.) – Attorney General Jack Conway’s office sided with the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions in an opinion released today, agreeing that a subcommittee formed in April by the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) to find a new education commissioner failed to comply with the state’s open-meetings law.

“In its rush to hire a new commissioner, the board voted to create a subcommittee made up of personnel from the board and the Kentucky Department of Education with the purpose of finding an executive search firm to assist in the process,” explained Bluegrass Institute staff education analyst Richard G. Innes. “However, neither the board nor the department considered the fact that such a body needed to comply with Kentucky’s open-meetings law. It appears the board and its advisors believed the law didn’t apply and the subcommittee would be free to operate totally in secret.”

The Bluegrass Institute appealed to the Attorney General’s office after the KBE denied its complaint.

Today’s ruling, which can be found online here, concludes that the subcommittee “was a public agency” because the state education board – which created the committee comprised of members who themselves are members of public agencies – is itself a public agency.

“Accordingly, the committee was required to comply with the requirements of the Open Meetings Act,” the attorney general’s ruling states.

The Bluegrass Institute requested in its original complaint that the KBE conduct a training session for its members during a future regular webcast meeting with an Open Meetings expert from the Attorney General’s office.

“This will allow not only state board members but also other members of the education community to get educated about their responsibilities to comply with the state’s governmental transparency requirements,” Innes said. “Hopefully, that training will now go forward.”

The Bluegrass Institute calls on the education bureaucracy in Frankfort and every school board around the commonwealth to comply with the open-meetings law.

“This is far from the only case of education agencies in the commonwealth running afoul of these governmental-transparency rules,” Bluegrass Institute president Jim Waters said.

Since the beginning of the year, the Attorney General’s office has rendered four other decisions where local boards of education and a School-Based Decision-Making Council violated open-meetings requirements.

“Clearly, a problem exists within the education community about what they must do to comply with the transparency laws of the state and whether they even need to comply with these laws,” Waters said. “Such improper committee actions can put contracts in jeopardy and can lead to needless waste of tax dollars.”

For more information or comment, contact Bluegrass Institute president Jim Waters at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com or (270) 320-4376, or staff education analyst Richard Innes at (859) 466-8198 or dinnes@freedomkentucky.com.