Request By:
Mr. Willie Hendrickson
Bell County Judge/Executive
Courthouse
Pineville, Kentucky 40977
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You inquire as to whether or not the Bell County Fiscal Court has the authority to transfer the operation and supervision of the Comprehensive Employment and Training program to a community action agency. The answer is "no". We assume your fiscal court, as a unit of general local government, is a prime sponsor under 29 U.C.A. § 812(a)(4).
The federal statute imposes restrictions on a prime sponsor of such an employment program. One of the conditions is that the prime sponsor must furnish the Secretary of Labor assurance that such manpower services will be administered by or under the supervision of the prime sponsor. 29 U.S.C. § 815(a)(1). This is an overriding condition for receipt of financial assistance from the Secretary of Labor (United States), although a companion condition is that the prime States), although a companion conditionis that the prime sponsor utilize community-based organizations, including community action agencies, in the planning of such programs [29 U.S.C. § 815(a)(3)(A)] and in the operation of the work program [29 U.S.C. § 815(a)(3)(B)(C)(D)(E)].
It is our opinion that the fiscal court has no authority to transfer the operation and supervision of the county's CETA program to a community action agency. The federal law, cited above, explicitly requires that the prime sponsor directly administer the work program or supervise the project. Thus the supervisory control cannot be relinquished by fiscal court.
In addition, the Kentucky law is even more restrictive. If the county employs anyone under this program, that person is a county employee and is subject to the overall control of the fiscal court. See KRS 67.080, as amended by H.B. 152 (Ch. 118, 1978 Acts, Section 2(1)(f)), providing that the fiscal court may establish all appointive offices, set the duties of those offices, and approve all appointments to those offices. KRS 67.710(7) provides that the county judge/executive shall nominate persons for appointments as employees, subject to the fiscal court's acceptance or rejection of such nominations. Thus county employees, including CETA employees of the county, are subject to these statutory procedures of appointment.
There is no statute permitting the employment of CETA employees by fiscal court where such employees would be working for some noncounty institution or agency outside of the supervision of fiscal court.
It is not necessary to deal with the conflict of interest question, since we have concluded that the county's CETA program cannot be brought under the supervision of a community action agency so long as the fiscal court is a prime sponsor.