Request By:
Mr. Arnold Guess
Acting Director
Kentucky School Building Authority
Department of Education
Capital Plaza Tower
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
As Acting Director of the Kentucky School Building Authority and on behalf of the Authority, you have asked the Office of the Attorney General whether site acquisition cost may be included in a project in which the Authority participates. It is our conclusion the answer to this question is that such cost may be included.
In House Bill 627, 1978 Acts of the General Assembly, the Kentucky School Building Authority was established. Section 2 of the Act, which has been codified as KRS 157.805, defines the term "project" in subsection (5) as follows:
"'Project' means any undertaking to provide for a board of education any school buildings, facilities, improvements, and appurtenances and may include not only such as are authorized in KRS 162.120 to 162.300, but also those for any purpose enumerated in KRS 160.477(1)(a) and subsection (1) of Section 1 of this Act."
It seems that emphasis in this definition is on constructing or working on school buildings and not the real property upon which the buildings are situated and thus supportive of a conclusion that site cost might have been intended to have been excluded in a "project." Some support for such a conclusion might even be garnered from the last section of the Act, KRS 157.895, where reference to acquiring sites is tied in only with vocational schools. However, in the KRS 157.805(5) definition of "project," there is specific reference to other school property related statutes. Of primary importance is the reference to KRS 160.477(1)(a) because very specifically this statutory provision goes to the acquisition of school sites. Thus, we believe site acquisition cost is a factor the Kentucky School Building Authority may rightfully evaluate in considering school districts projects.