Request By:
Mr. Mark E. Gormley
Woodford County Attorney
Courthouse
Versailles, Kentucky 40383
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your letter concerns a contemplated suit of the Kentucky Association of County Judge Executives against the Kentucky Local Correctional Facilities Construction Authority, established pursuant to KRS 441.605 et seq.
The letter reads in part:
"The nature of this suit would probably be as a Declaratory Judgment action with initial injunctive relief requested. The Woodford Fiscal Court, along with other Fiscal Courts in Kentucky, has been asked by the Judge's Association to contribute $200.00 to the Judge's Association for purposes of defraying the legal expenses of such a lawsuit. Our Fiscal Court is desirous of making such a contribution.
"The question is whether such an expenditure of funds by the Fiscal Court would be proper.
"It is the opinion of my office that pursuant to the authority set out in Chapter 67 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes, the Fiscal Court would be allowed to make such a disbursement of funds for the reason that the subject matter is of vital interest to the business of the Fiscal Court, i.e. operation of its jail, which is required by law."
We have written that the jailer and fiscal court in Kentucky have a joint responsibility for the care and operation of the county jail in an institutional and operational sense. See KRS 441.006(1), 441.008(1), 441.009(1), and 441.010(1). See also OAG 83-380, as to details concerning that joint responsibility.
The litigation would relate to the county jail construction program under KRS Chapter 441, including generally such matters as use of the jails, local government contributions to such projects, priority selection of jail construction sites, and criteria for allocation of state construction money.
The question here is whether a fiscal court can contribute county funds to the legal expenses of such a lawsuit, the purpose being to seek a clarification and interpretation of the new jail legislation.
In City of Bowling Green v. T. & E. Elec. Contr., Ky., 602 S.W.2d 434 (1980), the court cited the rule that a local government possesses only those powers expressly granted by the constitution and statutes plus such powers as are necessarily implied or incident to the expressly granted powers and which are indispensable to enable it to carry out its declared objects, purposes and expressed powers. See also Roberts v. City of St. Louis, Mo., 242 S.W.2d 293 (1951); Griffin v. City of Paducah, Ky., 382 S.W.2d 402 (1964); and Todd County Fiscal Court v. Frey, Ky., 285 S.W.2d 499 (1956).
Since this jail legislation is of immediate and pressing concern to fiscal courts in Kentucky, we believe that KRS 67.080(2)(d) and 67.083(3)(e) provide express and specific authority for a fiscal court's contributing $200.00 of county money to the County Judge Executive's Association for purposes of defraying the legal expenses of such suit. This is subject to proper budgeting procedure as outlined in KRS Chapter 68. Clearly this expenditure would be for a public purpose since it relates to the fiscal court's jail function. See §§ 3 and 171, Kentucky Constitution. See 56 Am.Jur.2d, Municipal Corporations, § 579, page 629.
Such expenditure would not, under § 179, Kentucky Constitution, constitute a lending of county credit to the County Judge's Association, since the use is a proper county governmental use. The county would be paying for legal services in a lawsuit designed to directly be helpful to the fiscal court in carrying out its jail responsibilities. See Louisville Municipal Housing Comm. v. Public Housing Admin., Ky., 261 S.W.2d 286 (1953).
The interest of the County Judge's Association can relate only to the county judge executive as the chief executive of the county and as a member of the fiscal court. The Association's interest in such suit thus could only relate to a public, i.e., county purpose.