By Devin Katayama
Frankfort, KY – Kentucky legislators meet today in the Joint Committee for Health and Welfare to discuss transparency in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. The cabinet has been criticized lately for not releasing certain child abuse records after a social worker was accused of not investigating a case that led to a child's death. Committee co-chair Tom Burch has previously proposed legislation to mandate transparency of certain child welfare records. This mandate was attached to 2007 legislation Burch co-sponsored to protect case workers after Boni Frederick was killed performing her duties. But, Burch says amendments were made.
"We did not go far enough because I had transparency in there where the cabinet had to open up their record to these cases. And I took that part out to get the first part passed."
Burch further introduced a bill in the 2011 regular session, which again made certain records public. It was rejected. Burch says he hopes the issue will continue to gather steam in the new legislative session.