For Immediate Release: Monday, March 26, 2018 Groups and media organizations across the political spectrum were alarmed when, as the Bluegrass Institute Center for Open Government reported, House Bill 302 was changed to reclassify government business done on private devices and accounts as outside the reach of the open records law. As a result, the…
Editor’s note: The Bluegrass Beacon is a weekly syndicated statewide newspaper column posted on the Bluegrass Institute website after being released to and published by newspapers statewide. The incredible demolition of the Capital Plaza Tower, Frankfort’s tallest building brought down after falling into disrepair, offers a stark visual reminder not only of what’s going to…
Surprise NPR published an interesting ranking of the average teacher salaries across the 50 states a few days ago. I think the findings will surprise many in Kentucky. Below is an extract from a graphic in the NPR article that shows the top-ranked states for teacher salaries as of 2016. Surprise! After adjusting for the…
As Kentucky legislators harshly reacted to our position on proposed legislation aimed at vastly narrowing the scope and application of the Open Records Act by redefining the term “public record” to exclude “any electronic communications . . . using a private cell phone or other private electronic device that is paid for with private funds or…
By Amye Bensenhaver When it was introduced into the House of Representatives on February 2, 2018, HB 302 was described as “An act relating to reorganization.” At that time, its stated purpose was to “Amend KRS 12.020 and 12.252 to create the Professional Licensing Legal Division within the Public Protection Cabinet; create the Office of…
In a fitting climax to Sunshine Week, 2018, the Kentucky Supreme Court heard oral argument on March 15 in Department of Revenue v. Mark F. Sommer. The question before the Court is whether the public has a right to know how the Department of Revenue interprets Kentucky’s tax laws in recurring taxpayer protests. In October,…
In the fourth and final installment of our Sunshine Week Open Records and Open Meetings Q and A, we focus on the process by which a citizen open government advocate can challenge public agency violations of the Open Meetings Act. In the third installment we identified the citizens’ rights and the agency’s duties under the…
“Online resources are overflowing, but reliable means to evaluate them and help teachers use them are rare.” Lawrie Mifflin in The Hechinger Report’s “How to sort the good from the bad in OER” (OER means Open Education Resources) (Note: this is particularly problematic in Kentucky where the school council in each school is responsible to…
In the third installment of our Sunshine Week series, we focus on the citizen open government advocate’s use of the Kentucky Open Meetings Act to advance the public’s right to know. Public agencies exist, the legislature has declared, “to aid in the conduct of the people’s business.” The rights and duties secured by the Open…
As a practical way of observing Sunshine Week, the Bluegrass Institute offers the second installment of its “how to” series for citizen open government advocates. These frequently asked open records questions and answers focus on what an open records requester should expect from a public agency after he submits a request and what the requester…