Request By:
Mr. Brent Yonts
Attorney at Law
112 Court Street
Greenville, Kentucky 42345
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You refer to OAG 77-325, written to you, in which we concluded that an assessment under KRS 262.777 requires a bond issue. We also concluded that the statutes do not contemplate a surplus through the use of an assessment.
What your district actually needs is $10,000 annually for maintenance of existing dams and waterways.
Your specific question is whether it is possible to approve in a referendum a bond issue adequate to meet the maintenance needs of the conservancy district over the next 25 years, and on an annual basis in fact sell sufficient bonds each year to cover the maintenance costs for that particular year. The answer is "no."
See KRS 262.745, authorizing the board of directors of the watershed conservancy district, subject to the approval of the board of supervisors, to sell the district's bonds. See also KRS 262.750. Under the latter statute the bond proposal is finally submitted to the landowners of the district by referendum under supervision of the board of supervisors.
It is our opinion that the statutes relating to the issuance of bonds do not contemplate the issuance of bonds on a delayed-schedule, year-by-year basis. These statutes require substantial compliance. You could also discuss with bond counsel the impracticality of such proposed procedure, in any event. Concerning bonds, see KRS 262.750.
As relates to your maintenance problem, provision is made in KRS 262.745 for the annual tax on real property to be used, among other things, for maintenance of works of improvement. However, the annual tax for maintenance purposes cannot exceed five mills per dollar of the fair cash value of real property within the district. KRS 262.760.
Where the annual tax is not sufficient to fund the district's operational and maintenance costs [and assuming there is no bond issue] , the matter is one for the General Assembly [an amendment of the statute to raise the tax maximum]. The taxing power of the district is limited, and, especially so, where no bond issue is involved,