Request By:
Honorable Don Buring
Attorney at Law
Covington Trust Building
Covington, Kentucky 41011
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of May 31 in which you relate that your law firm represents the Northern Kentucky Mental Health-Mental Retardation Regional Board, Inc., and you seek an opinion from this office concerning the construction of KRS 68.510, et seq. , as it may relate to the following matter. You mention that this office issued an opinion to the effect that the counties of Boone, Campbell and Kenton have no authority to place on the May primary ballot a referendum question concerning the imposition of a mental health tax; however, you indicate that no mention was made of the public service programs authorized to be placed to a vote of the people pursuant to KRS 68.510, et seq.
The opinion to which you refer is OAG 78-123 [copy attached] . You will note that we were asked whether or not the fiscal court could, pursuant to its resolution [copy attached] and on behalf of the mental health taxing district, place the tax question on the primary ballot rather than place the responsibility on the court to impose the tax levy as authorized by KRS 210.480. Our response to this was in the negative for the reasons expressed in said opinion.
The original request upon which OAG 78-123 was based made no mention of "public service programs" authorized by KRS 68.510; however, later, by phone, the question was raised and we responded to the effect that we did not believe that the question could be submitted pursuant to this statute on behalf of the mental health taxing district pursuant to KRS 210.480 and we still hold to that conclusion.
KRS 68.510 refers solely to public service programs to be performed by the county and not such programs to be performed by any other political subdivision of the state. KRS 210.370 to KRS 210.480 authorizes, in effect, any combination of cities and counties to establish a regional community health service program, together with a governing board such as Northern Kentucky, which we have held to be a political subdivision of the state in OAG 73-203. At the same time KRS 210.470 creates a mental health taxing district in each county and the succeeding statute, KRS 210.480, authorizes the fiscal court to levy a special tax on behalf of the taxing district when so requested. As explained in OAG 78-123, the fiscal court has, in our opinion, no authority in acting on behalf of the taxing district to place the question of levying said tax to a vote of the people, since no such authority exists therein. On the other hand, we believe it is the duty of the fiscal court to make up its own mind as to whether or not the tax will be imposed. The reasons for this conclusion are explained in the opinion and we will not reiterate them here.
Though we do not believe that the fiscal court can order the tax question to be placed on the ballot in the manner presented to this office [which is on behalf of the mental health retardation board and the district created under the act], not only by reason of the lack of statutory authority under the act but also by reason of the language expressed in KRS 68.510 to the effect that public service programs authorized thereby are those programs to be performed solely by the county, we nevertheless believe that the county can on its own initiative possibly place a similar question on the ballot as long as the general subject relates to human services and health services, provided the county itself operates the program on its own under KRS 68.520 and not pursuant to KRS 210.480 on behalf of the mental health-mental retardation regional board.