Request By:
Mr. Buel E. Stalls
407 North Fifth Street
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 20 in which you raise the following question:
"Can a city of the third class abolish its paid fire department and replace same with a voluntary fire department?"
Our response to your question would be in the negative, assuming that the city is operating its fire department pursuant to Ch. 95 KRS. Under third class city charter, particularly KRS 85.190(1), provision is made that the common council may, by ordinance, establish and maintain a fire department. Prior to an amendment in 1966 the establishment of a police and fire department in cities of the third class was purely optional under Ch. 95 KRS: however, by virtue of said amendment, wherein the General Assembly substituted the word "shall" in place of the word "may" in KRS 95.440(1), we reached the conclusion in OAG 73-169 [copy attached] that the establishment of a police department under Ch. 95 KRS [which would equally apply to the fire department] was thereafter mandatory.
Since the establishment of a police and fire department is considered mandatory in our opinion and there is no provision for the dissolutionment of either department under Ch. 95 KRS relating to third class cities, we do not believe that either department can be legally abolished. As you know, cities are governed strictly by the authority given them by the legislature, and they have no more power than that granted by the Constitution or implemented statutes. See Juett v. Town of Williamstown, 248 Ky. 235, 58 S.W.2d 411 (1933).