Request By:
Gene Record
Administrator
Kentucky Board of Barbering
4265 Roosevelt Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40213
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; C. David Clauss, Assistant Attorney General
You have written on behalf of the Kentucky Board of Barber Examiners concerning the Board's practice of allowing a student who has re-enrolled in a barber school following a period of disenrollment, to receive credit for some portion of the hours of study accrued by the student during the student's original enrollment.
Because the Kentucky Board of Barbering exists only by virtue of statute (KRS 317.430), the Board's authority to perform a specific function is limited (See Courtney v. Island Creek Coal Co., 474 F.2d 468 (6th Cir. 1973).); and a statute must warrant any exercise of any authority which the Board claims (See Department for Natural Resources and Environmental Protection v. Stearns Coal & Lumber Co., Ky., 563 S.W.2d 571 (1978).).
Because no statute grants the Board the authority to permit a student to receive credit for hours of study accrued during a period of enrollment which proceeds a period of disenrollment from a barber school, we must conclude that the Board does not have such authority. Furthermore, the fact that students in barber schools, or for that matter, the barber schools themselves, may have relied to their detriment upon previous decisions of the Board contrary to this opinion, is not relevant because anyone dealing with state boards or agencies is by law charged with knowledge that the board or agency has only limited authority as is specifically granted by statute (See Calvert v. Allen County Fiscal Court, 252 Ky. 450, 67 S.W.2d 701 (1934).).
Additionally, your question regarding the constitutionality of KRS 317.540(1) need not be answered in view of the foregoing discussion. Suffice it to say that the discussion of the Board's limited authority is in complete accord with the intent expressed by KRS 317.540(1) that graduates of barber schools in Kentucky complete the prescribed course of instruction during a period of uninterrupted enrollment.