Request By:
Hon. Walter A. Sholar
Bullitt County Attorney
P. O. Box 6539
Shepherdsville, Kentucky 40165
Opinion
Opinion By: CHRIS GORMAN, ATTORNEY GENERAL; Gerard R. Gerhard, Assistant Attorney General
By letter of May 25, 1994, you asked, in substance, whether the fiscal court may create a KRS 220 sanitation district that does not have taxing authority.
In our view the answer is no. Discussion follows.
A KRS chapter 220 "sanitation district" may be created by the secretary of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet acting as "commissioner of sanitation districts" in accordance with KRS 220.020.
KRS 220.360 invests the board of directors of a sanitation district with certain authority to impose taxes in connection with such a district.
KRS 220.035 enumerates certain specific powers a fiscal court may exercise in connection with a sanitation district. Those powers do not provide authority for a fiscal court to restrict the taxing authority invested in the board of directors of a sanitation district by KRS 220.360.
It is well recognized that a county (and of course, a fiscal court), as a subordinate unit of government, can do that which it is statutorily empowered to do, and cannot do that which it is not authorized to do. The legislature has expressly listed the authority of a fiscal court in connection with a sanitation district (KRS 220.035).
As was pointed out in