Request By:
Mr. Douglas Brandenburg
Lee County Judge Executive
Beattyville, Kentucky 41311
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
A question has arisen concerning the purchasing of equipment under a state price contract.
Your county has the magisterial system. The magistrates would like to buy tires, to go on their individually owned vehicles, under the state price contract. They would pay the fiscal court for the price of the tires. You told us that they use their private vehicles to look over the county roads (about 50% of the total use), preparatory for taking road action, from time to time, when the fiscal court meets.
Under KRS 45.365, any county may purchase materials and supplies pursuant to a contract for such materials and supplies entered into by the Department of Finance for the Commonwealth. Thus KRS 45.365 provides for central purchasing by the Finance Department for political subdivisions. See 200 KAR 5:050, the implementing administrative regulation.
It is our opinion that KRS 45.365 only envisions a political subdivision's participating in the central purchase program in the procurement of materials or supplies for the county as public property to be used exclusively for a public purpose. It does not permit private purchases, such as the proposed purchases, even though the privately owned tires would be used, at least for one-half of its use, for a county, public purpose.
The fiscal court's direct powers of purchase only embrace the acquiring of county property for a strictly county and public purpose. See KRS 67.080, 67.083, 45A.345 to 45A.460, and 424.260. Most importantly, §§ 3 and 171, Kentucky Constitution, require that taxes be expended for public purposes only. Shanks v. Commonwealth, 219 Ky. 212, 292 S.W. 837 (1927).