Request By:
Mr. B. C. Dailey, Treasurer
Ashland Board of Education
2601 Lexington Avenue
Ashland, Kentucky 41101
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
As the treasurer of the Ashland Board of Education you have requested an opinion concerning the expenditure of school funds by the Ashland Board of Education to partially defray expenses incurred by the City of Ashland to a private appraisal company for reappraisal of property within the city limits of Ashland. The reappraisal was ordered by the Boyd Circuit Court in an action by a private party and realty company against the City of Ashland and some of its officials.
Your question in a nutshell is whether public school monies may be expended to assist the City of Ashland in defraying a cost placed on them by court action over which the school board had no control for a reason the school board had no responsibility to supervise. The reappraisal expenses were incurred by the City of Ashland as a result of the lawsuit filed against the City. Neither the school system nor any official thereof was a party to the lawsuit.
It is our opinion under the authority of Sections 184 and 186 of the Kentucky Constitution that the Ashland Board of Education may not share or participate in defraying the cost of the property reappraisal that was authorized by the Board of City Commissioners of Ashland. These state constitutional sections mandate that school funds shall only be used for the maintenance of public schools. Our state appeals court has applied these constitutional sections strictly. In
Board of Education of Spencer County v. Spencer County, 313 Ky. 8, 230 S.W.2d 81 (1950), for example, the Court of Appeals held:
"The test is, what constitutes an educational purpose within the meaning of Section 184 of the Constitution, rather than whether an activity might be beneficial to education."
Thus, while the Ashland school system may be a direct beneficiary of the property reappraisals, we do not believe the school can reasonably claim that paying for the reappraisals in an expenditure of school funds constituting an educational purpose.