25-OMD-399 – Gay Adelmann/Education Professional Standards Board

Opinion Content:

December 11, 2025

In re: Gay Adelmann/Education Professional Standards Board

Summary: The Office of the Attorney General (“the Office”) lacks
jurisdiction to consider a complaint alleging that the Education
Professional Standards Board (“the Board”) violated the Open Meetings
Act (“the Act”) because the complaint was not first submitted to the
presiding officer of the public agency accused of violating the Act and
did not propose remedies for the alleged violation.

Open Meetings Decision

On September 22, 2025, Gay Adelmann (“Appellant”) submitted a complaint
to the Commissioner of Education regarding an administrative hearing conducted by
the Board. The complaint alleged that the Board had violated the Act by (1) requiring
the Appellant to sign in to enter the building in which the meeting was held, in
violation of KRS 61.840, and (2) not allowing her to record the hearing. The Appellant
also complained that she was called to testify during that proceeding and about the
issuance of a summons. In response, the Board denied violating the Act because
administrative hearings are not public meetings subject to the Act. This appeal
followed.

As an initial matter, the Office must be assured of its jurisdiction before it may
render a decision under KRS 61.846(2). A complainant’s request for the Attorney
General to review an agency’s denial of a complaint under the Act is a statutory
proceeding created by the General Assembly as an act of legislative grace. As such, a
complainant must strictly comply with KRS 61.846 before invoking the Attorney
General’s jurisdiction to review the complaint. See, e.g., 25-OMD-004; 24-OMD-200;
24-OMD-133; 22-OMD-177.

To invoke the Attorney General’s jurisdiction to review a complaint under
KRS 61.846(2), a complainant “shall begin enforcement” under KRS 61.846(1). That
provision requires the complainant to “submit a written complaint to the presiding
officer of the public agency suspected of” violating the Act. Id. Accordingly, to begin
enforcement, the complaint may not be submitted to just any person associated with
the public agency; rather, the complaint must be sent to the agency’s “presiding
officer.” In 22-OMD-177, the Office dismissed a complaint alleging a Jefferson County
public school’s Site-Based Decision Making Council had violated the Act because the
complainant had failed to submit his complaint to the council’s presiding officer.
Rather, he submitted his complaint to the Superintendent of the Jefferson County
Public Schools and the school district’s general counsel.

Here, the Appellant alleged a violation of the Act by the Board, but she
submitted her complaint to the Commissioner of Education. The Board explains that
the Commissioner is not the Board’s presiding officer. Thus, because the Appellant
did not submit her complaint to the Board’s presiding officer, she did not comply with
KRS 61.846(1). Therefore, the Office lacks jurisdiction under KRS 61.846(2), and
must dismiss this appeal. 1

A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating an action in the
appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.846(4)(a). The Attorney General shall
be notified of any action in circuit court, but shall not be named as a party in that
action or in any subsequent proceedings. The Attorney General will accept notice of
the complaint emailed to [email protected].

Russell Coleman
Attorney General

/s/ Zachary M. Zimmerer
Zachary M. Zimmerer
Assistant Attorney General

1 Although the Appellant has not successfully invoked the Office’s jurisdiction here, the Office notes
that the Kentucky Court of Appeals, in an unpublished decision, has held that administrative hearings
of public agencies, like the one identified by the Appellant, are not public meetings subject to the Act.
See Jenkins v. Ky. Ret. Sys., No. 2018-CA-000395-MR, 2019 WL 4565240, at *6 (Ky. App. Sept. 20,
2019) (finding that the agency’s decision to close a hearing to the public did not violate the Act because
the Act “applies only to ‘meetings of a quorum of the members of any public agency’” and “the
administrative hearing did not involve a quorum of the members of” the agency). Accordingly, even if
the Appellant had successfully invoked the Office’s jurisdiction, the Office would have to find that the
administrative hearing in question was not a public meeting subject to the Act.

Gay Adelmann
Todd G. Allen, General Counsel, Department of Education
Tina Drury, Office of Legal Services, Kentucky Department of Education
Nicholas J. Cacopardo, Staff Attorney I, Office of Legal Services, Kentucky
Department of Education