Request By:
Ms. Kim Burse
Assistant State Treasurer
Office of the State Treasurer
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Chris Gorman, Attorney General; Ross T. Carter, Assistant Attorney General
This is in response to your letter to this office requesting an opinion on whether savings institutions or entities other than traditional commercial banks are eligible for designation as state depositories in Kentucky under Chapter 41 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes.
In your letter you indicated that based upon two prior opinions from our office, OAG 73-109 and 81-353, only state banks organized under KRS Chapter 287 and any national banks whose principal offices are located in Kentucky may be declared as state depositories. A review of those opinions reveals that the author relied upon Kentucky and other states' court cases to define "banks," since Chapter 41 failed to define "banks" at the time the opinions were issued.
Subsequent to the publication of those opinions, the General Assembly, in 1982, added a provision to KRS 41.010 which reads as follows:
(2) As used in this chapter, the words 'bank' and 'depository' include any qualified financial intermediary and savings and loan associations chartered by the state of Kentucky or United States government.
It is a well known principle of law that a legislative body in enacting statutes may define terms used in the statutes. Therefore, since the General Assembly in KRS 41.010(2) defined "bank" and "depository" to include savings and loan associations, such institutions can be considered as state depositories so long as they satisfy the remaining criteria found in Chapter 41 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes.