Kentucky Auditors Allison Ball and Ombudsman Jonathan Grate filed a lawsuit against Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. This lawsuit, filed on August 26, 2024, concerns recently restricted access to a database called iTWIST.
The iTWIST database encompasses the information the Auditor of Public Accounts (APA) and the Commonwealth Office of the Ombudsman need to help vulnerable children and adults who are being mistreated by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
The Commonwealth Office of the Ombudsman was created as a watchdog branch with the ability to investigate the actions of the cabinet. Previously, the office was under the cabinet itself. However, the 2023 Ky. Senate Bill 48 moved the office to be under the Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts instead.
“Because it’s an investigatory office, it makes sense you want it to be a little bit separate from the office that it was investigating,” Aud. Ball commented.
Gov. Beshear’s cabinet had agreed that all of the office’s assets were to be transferred over to be under the APA. As of July 1, 2024, the office has been officially transferred to the APA office but was denied access to the iTWIST database.
Senate Bill 48 (2023) stated that the office would have continued access to the database even after the transition to the APA. However, Gov. Beshear and his cabinet have refused to give the ombudsman access to iTWIST, an action that Aud. Ball calls “unworkable and unlawful constraints on our access,” according to an article about the incident on Ky.gov.
Aud. Ball explains that her office has attempted to reach an agreement with the cabinet and regain their access to the database, but to no avail, leading Aud. Ball and Ombudsman Grate to officially take the issue to court.
In the official complaint filed by Aud. Ball and Ombudsman Grate, it is stated that “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.”
Prior to filing the lawsuit, Aud. Ball and Ombudsman Grate brought the issue to Gov. Beshear’s Office a total of three times in an attempt to reach an agreement about the necessity and lawfulness of the APA’s access to iTWIST.
Beshear’s cabinet has attempted to reach an agreement with the APA concerning their access to iTWIST.
“The governor supports changing the law in the next legislative session to provide access. In the meantime, the 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,” Beshear Spokeswoman Crystal Staley said.
In light of this inability to reach a compromise before the next legislative session and the importance of the iTWIST access to the success of the ombudsman, Aud. Ball and her office chose to take the issue to the judiciary.
“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,” says Aud. Ball’s official lawsuit, “That access is necessary for the Office to ensure that Kentucky’s most vulnerable children and adults receive the care they need from the Cabinet.”
Photo courtesy of Lexington Herald.
