Request By:
Mr. Hugh O. Skees
Vincent, Skees & Wilson
West Building
240 Main Street
Florence, Kentucky 41042
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Walter C. Herdman, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
As Attorney for the City of Florence, you present the following facts and question:
"By way of background, over the years when the City of Florence has undertaken a project for the improvement of a street or construction of a water or sewer line and financed the project by assessment of benefited property owners, the City has made the ten year installment payment plan for assessments available to the property owners and issued bonds to finance these deferred assessments under the provisions of KRS Chapter 94. The City would like to continue to make installment payments of assessments and bond financing available.
"As you know, the provisions of KRS Chapter 94 providing for the installment payment plan and the bonds have been repealed and replaced by KRS 91A.200 to 91A.290. KRS 91A.220(3) provides generally that in an assessment project the city may provide for installment payments of assessments and for bond or other long term financing.
"Our question then is: May the City of Florence under the authority of KRS 91A.220(3) and its homerule powers enact an Ordinance providing for an installment plan and bond financing similar to the repealed provisions of KRS Chapter 94 and use this Ordinance as a basis to provide for installment payment of assessments and for the issuance of valid tax exempt bonds to finance such deferred assessments for future projects?"
Our response to your question would be in the affirmative. KRS 91A.200 requires all cities to utilize the special assessment procedure detailed in the act or that authorized in some other statute. The act also authorizes the payment of assessments by installments under KRS 91A.220(3) and 91.280 but does not detail the method of payment thereby leaving it to the city's discretion. More specifically KRS 91A.210 lists three methods of assessing the property under subsections (6), (7) and (8); and KRS 91A.220(3) states that the city may provide for lump sum or installment paying of assessments for any improvement and may afford property owners the option as to method of paying or financing.
In other words the method or procedure by which the property owner is to pay by installments under both KRS 91A.220 and 91A.230 is left to the discretion of the city in its improvemant ordinance except that the payment of the first installment shall coincide with the payment of the ad valorem taxes. Consequently we see no objection to the city utilizing the installment procedure outlined in KRS Chapter 94 even though it was repealed in 1980 at the time the present act was adopted. Also the home rule statute, KRS 82.082, would apply since there would be no conflict with KRS 91A.200 to 91A.290.
The city could also utilize KRS Chapter 58 for financing the improvement project as held in the case of