Request By:
Ms. Jo Crass
City Clerk, City of Murray
City Hall Building
Murray, Kentucky 42071
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of January 12 in which you raise the following questions:
"I would greatly appreciate your opinion regarding KRS 424.220, Financial Statements, as it relates to the City of Murray (3rd Class). Are we obligated to publish total salaries for General Fund employees?
"Also, our Gas and Water Systems are city owned but not operated out of the General Fund. Are these systems also required to publish a line item financial statement of receipts and expenditures?"
Our response to your initial question would be in the negative as held in OAG's 74-89 and 74-173, copies attached. You will note that cities of the third and fourth class are permitted to publish merely an annual audit rather than a detailed financial statement required under KRS 424.220. See KRS 92.304 and KRS 92.305 referred to in the attached opinions.
Our reponse to your second question would be in the affirmative where the city is operating its gas and water system as a separate agency of the city government for the reasons outlined in OAG 67-219, copy attached. This poinion points out that under the present statutes utilities operated separately from general funds in cities of the third and fourth class would not be included in the exception permitting cities of the second class to merely publish an annual audit of such utilities under KRS 92.403. As a consequence, we believe that the utility system publish a detailed statement as required by KRS 424.220 which would include the annual salaries of its employees. The attached opinion explains in more detail the reason for this conclusion.