Request By:
Mr. James M. Frazer
Wayne County Attorney
P.O. Box 686
Monticello, Kentucky 42633
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Except in case of an emergency, no county may, during the first half of any fourth fiscal year encumber or expend more than sixty-five per cent (65%) of all its current funds, taken as a unit, budgeted for that fiscal year, not counting as current funds any budgetary allotments for or payments of principal and interest of bonded indebtedness. KRS 68.310. Under KRS 68.060, the fiscal year of each county begins on July 1 and ends on June 30 of the next following. Thus the first half of the fourth fiscal year would begin on July 1, 1977, and ends on December 31, 1977.
Your question is whether revenue sharing funds of the county are subject to the statutory limitation of KRS 68.310. We agree with you. In our opinion the answer is "yes".
The legislative policy expressed in KRS 68.310 is calculated to insure that the incoming fiscal court [here new term beginning in January, 1978] will have enough money to at least pay for essential governmental services during their first six months in office.
Under current federal law the revenue sharing money allotted to each Kentucky county may be spent for any county purpose authorized by Kentucky statutes. The county's revenue sharing money is merely required to be integrated with the usual budgeting process. See 31 U.S.C.A. § 1241.
Thus revenue sharing money of the county which has been "budgeted", as envisioned by KRS Chapter 68, is subject to the statutory limitations of KRS 68.310. Once revenue sharing money is budgeted, it becomes subject to the literal terms of KRS 68.310. The Court of Appeals has said that the courts have a duty to construe the statutes literally if it is reasonably possible to do so. Here it is reasonably possible to do so. Barrett v. Stephany, Ky., 510 S.W.2d 524 (1974) 526.