FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office last week issued rulings in cases involving allegations of open-records and open-meetings law violations against the Carter County Fiscal Court.

Both of the cases stemmed from the plan to create a regional jail authority involving Carter and Boyd counties.

Carter Fiscal Court on Wednesday voted to approve the enabling legislation for the authority, which was earlier approved by the Boyd Fiscal Court.

In the open-records case, Assistant Attorney General Amye L. Bensenhaver found the court had partially violated the Kentucky Open Records Act with its response to a request for records relating to the proposed Northeast Regional Jail Authority.

Bensenhaver ruled the fiscal court and Judge-Executive Charles Wallace failed to fully comply with a June 21 open records request submitted by James Deckard for correspondence, notes, emails, invoices, checks and other documents exchanged between the court and jail consultant Joey Stanton and/or his firm, Stanton Consulting LLC, between July 1, 2011 and June 21 of this year. Deckard also requested Stanton’s personnel file “as an employee of the office of the Carter County Judge/Executive.”

Deckard is a Lexington attorney who served as chief of staff and counsel for former Kentucky Supreme Court Chief justice Joseph E. Lambert, as general counsel for former Gov. Ernie Fletcher and as executive director of the Kentucky Bar Association. His interest in the regional jail issue isn’t clear.

Deckard actually filed two separate requests. In response to the first one, filed May 28, Wallace complied with four of the seven subparts, but denied the existence of and “contracts, memoranda, etc.” between the fiscal court and any consultant, a financial review of the detention center of records relating to compliance with KRS 61.840, which requires government bodies to provide meeting room conditions that allow for effective public observation.

According to the ruling, the fiscal court later defended its failure to provide copies of invoices submitted by Stanton Consulting, which Deckard obtained from another source, emphasizing that nowhere in his June 21 request did the word “expenditure” appear.

“A careful review of Mr. Deckard’s June 21 request confirms the fiscal court’s position,” Bensenhaver wrote. “We cannot, and do not, read the first and second subparts of that request to extend to invoices or records documenting expenditures.”

Also, Bensenhaver noted, the absence of records documenting the relationship between Stanton and the fiscal court “is, simply stated, not actionable in an open-records appeal.

“Perhaps such documentation should exist, but the (Open Records) Act addresses access to records that do exist,” she wrote.

While Bensenhaver found Wallace and the fiscal court did not violate Deckard’s May 28 request, its response to his June 21 request was “a closer question,” she wrote.

In that response, Wallace agreed to provide Deckard with certain records, but omitted certain others. He also denied the existence of a personnel file relating to Stanton. That prompted Deckard to initiate a second appeal. Wallace responded by acknowledging the earlier omission and suggested a phone call to his office would have remedied it, the ruling states.

Wallace attached three invoices from Stanton Consulting, a travel expense report submitted by Stanton and the “Budget of the Boyd/Carter Regional Jail,” Bensenhaver wrote. With the exception of the travel expense report, Deckard had already obtained those records from other sources.

“(Deckard) subsequently expressed frustration with the paucity of records produced, insisting that additional responsive records must exist, but could offer no proof of the existence of additional records,” the ruling states.

While Bensenhaver wrote that the fiscal court did correct its omission, it still ultimated violated the Open Records Act because it “ultimately failed to provide Deckard with copies of the open records requests that prompted the responses it released to him.”

Also, according to the ruling, the existence of one travel expense report for Stanton Consulting “strong suggests the evidence of more” since the accompanying invoices reflect 13 tripes from Leitchfield, where Stanton lives, in May alone.

Additionally, Stanton’s employment as a “part-time temporary assistant” in the judge-executive’s office “surely resulted in the creation of records” such as state, federal and local tax forms and payroll records.

In contrast to his May 28 request, Deckard’s June 21 request was “narrowly tailored to elicit particular records” and the fiscal court was obligated to conduct a search using methods that could reasonably be expected to produce those records, Bensenhaver wrote.

In the open-meetings appeal, filed by Renee Stewart, Assistant Attorney General Michelle D. Harrison said she was unable to conclude from the evidence at hand that the fiscal court violated the state’s Open Meetings Act by failing to move its May 29 meeting, at which creation of the regional jail authority was discussed, to a larger room better accommodate the overflow crowd.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or

(606) 326-2654.