KY Auditor Ball sues Gov. Beshear over access to child abuse, neglect records

Kentucky’s auditor is suing Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration in an effort to access a database of child and adult neglect and abuse cases.

Republican Auditor Allison Ball and state Ombudsman Jonathan Grate claim in the lawsuit, filed Monday in Franklin Circuit Court, that Beshear and Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Eric Friedlander have blocked their offices from accessing the database, called iTWIST, which houses and tracks records related to some of Kentucky’s most vulnerable citizens.

The ombudsman “needs access to iTWIST to serve the people of Kentucky, especially its most vulnerable children and adults,” Ball said in a statement on Monday. “We have tried everything in our power to reach an agreement with the Cabinet to restore iTWIST access. But unfortunately, Gov. Beshear and the Cabinet are more interested in placing unworkable and unlawful constraints on our access than helping the commonwealth’s endangered children and adults.”

Crystal Staley, Director of Communications for the governor’s office, implied Monday that current law prevents the Cabinet from expanding access to the database, but she said Beshear “supports changing the law in the next legislative session.”

In the meantime, Staley said the Beshear administration has “tried to work with the Auditor’s Office to provide them with the maximum access allowed under the current law, but they have refused,” Staley said.

The Republican-controlled legislature in 2023 created the Commonwealth Office of the Ombudsman, an independent watchdog arm of state government designed to investigate complaints against the Cabinet and its employees, and ensure that the branch of state government that oversees health, welfare and child protection programs is in compliance with state and federal requirements.

The law that created the new ombudsman’s office, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, replaced what was known as the Office of the Ombudsman and Administrative Review, formerly part of the Cabinet and overseen by the governor. And it moved the office’s responsibilities from Democrats Beshear and Friedlander, to Ball, a Republican.

The new law took effect July 1, but neither the Cabinet nor Beshear ceded access to the database to the new ombudsman, citing laws that prevent the new ombudsman from reviewing those records, Ball’s office said.

On July 9, Ball sent a “demand letter,” saying access to iTWIST is “essential for the ombudsman to fully do its job as required by law,” and without it, “it’s impossible for the ombudsman to see if the Cabinet is effectively and efficiently serving Kentucky’s children.”

Meredith supported this move, saying it was the intention of the new law to give the ombudsman access to that database as a way to better hold the Cabinet accountable, and the Cabinet’s refusal to do so, with Beshear’s backing, goes against its “constitutional obligations.”

A Cabinet spokesperson told the Kentucky Lantern at the time they were working to provide the auditor’s office with the “maximum access allowed under current law, but they have refused.”

But Joy Pidgorodetska Markland, spokesperson for Ball’s office, said that limited access means staffers still have to go through Cabinet officials to search the database, essentially gatekeeping records of potential wrongdoing on the part of their own employees.

In the lawsuit, Ball and Grate claim, “There is simply no legitimate reason for the Cabinet to refuse to allow the Office to have full, direct and real-time access to iTWIST.”

The pair say they’ve tried to work with the Cabinet and Beshear before resorting to asking for the court to intervene, “but, regrettably, the time has now come for the judiciary to step in and end the Cabinet’s and the governor’s obstruction.”

Staley, with Beshear’s office, rebuffed that characterization Monday, saying, “on numerous occasions the Cabinet believed a resolution had nearly been reached, only to find the Auditor’s office had changed its position.”

“Today’s action shows the Auditor would rather play politics than work with the Cabinet on a solution — one that meets the requirements set forth by the General Assembly.”

This story may be updated.