Request By:
Mr. Reathel Goff
Superintendent
Ohio County Schools
Hartford, Kentucky 42347
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The Ohio County Board of Education requests our opinion on the following question:
"Can Coal Severance Economic Aid Funds be combined for both a Central Office and an elementary school? The project has been approved as a Central Office building, Project Number CSEAF 30-18, in the amount of $86,458.00."
We assume the proposed elementary school project qualifies as a capital project under KRS 42.330. The prohibition against using the fund for school purposes was deleted by a 1978 amendment of KRS 42.330 [1978 Acts, Ch. 188, § 2].
From your letter we assume that the central office building project has already been approved, and that now the school board would like for the elementary school project to be added to the central office building project and approved as a package.
It is our opinion that the combining of these two proposals and adding the additional proposed project would, in connection with the selectional and approval machinery of KRS 42.330, KRS 42.332, KRS 42.334, and State Regulations, 200 KAR 4:015, constitute a new proposal. Thus the combined proposals would have to conform to the above selective and approval processes set out in the above statutes and regulation. See especially the public notice aspect as covered by KRS 42.330(5) and 200 KAR 4:015, Section 2, relating to notice to the public of the proposed project. Meetings of the Economic Aid Fund Board are required to be open to the public, upon publication of notice of such meetings, when the purpose is to discuss and decide on the priority of projects. KRS 42.330(5). See Section 2, 200 KAR 4:015, concerning documentation by the Economic Aid Board of public meetings, held on publication of notices, dealing with proposed projects.
As we said in OAG 79-489, the regulations and statute require, among other things, a public hearing, such that the general public, that is, and school district, is sufficiently apprised of the nature and extent of the proposed projects. Administrative regulations properly adopted and filed have the force and effect of law. Reitze v. Williams, Ky., 458 S.W.2d 613 (1970).
The point is that "each proposal" [here you wish to combine two items into one proposal] must meet the statutory and regulations requirements. If you add the elementary school project to the prior central office project, you necessarily create a different or new project.