Request By:
Mr. Harold Kirby
Madison County Judge/Executive
Courthouse
Richmond, Kentucky 40475
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The Madison County Board of Education has requested the Madison County Fiscal Court to rock and maintain several school bus turn arounds.
Your question:
"Would the county be in violation of the law if an improvement was made for a school bus turn around if the property was privately owned and not deeded to the county?"
Although the school bus turnaround improvement is of a public nature and a worthy cause, unfortunately there is no statute permitting the expenditure of county money for such purpose involving private land. Public money has to be spent for a public purpose. Sections 3 and 171, Kentucky Constitution. But the General Assembly has to establish the public purpose [county purpose here] by statute. See Hogge v. Rowan County Fiscal Court, 313 Ky. 387, 231 S.W.2d 8 (1950), concerning limitations on powers of fiscal courts, and county purposes. County road money must be spent on county roads and bridges in the technical sense. See KRS 178.010, defining "county roads" as public roads which have been accepted by the fiscal court as a part of the county road system.
If the county acquires the right of way involving the turnaround, and thus makes it a part of the county road system, an expenditure of county funds for that purpose would be legal. See KRS 178.110, 178.125, and 416.540 et seq.
While KRS 158.115 authorizes a county to supplement the transportation of school children under certain conditions out of its general funds, the statute does not apply to the turnaround situation.
KRS 179.375 permits all counties to accept donations in fee to roads and driveways used by the public in connection with churches, cemeteries and public school buildings. After such acceptance by any county, such roads or driveways shall become a part of the county road system. Here this turnaround driveway is merely to accomodate the bus taking the pupils to a school building. Once it becomes a part of the county road system, county road funds may be spent on its proper maintenance.