Request By:
Mr. G. C. Garland
Superintendent
Laurel County Schools
London, Kentucky 40741
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
As Superintendent of the Laurel County Schools you have asked the Office of the Attorney General to consider a very novel question for an opinion response. You stated that through the 1977-78 school term there were four junior high schools in Laurel County, each consisting of grades seven through nine. For this 1978-79 school year, all eighth and ninth graders in the county will be located in a newly completed school. The eighth and ninth graders will be drawn from each of the four former junior high schools.
You further stated the new consolidated junior high school will have no school activity fund to begin the school year. You would like to recommend to the board of education that a part of each of the former junior highs' activity fund account monies be transferred to the new junior high school but are uncertain of the legal implications of this recommendation or of the act of the board if it adopted such a recommendation. In support of your inclination, you noted that since students attending the new junior high will be drawn from all the former attendance areas, the students who helped raise the money would in effect be taking the funds to the new school with them and would receive the benefits thereof. You noted that this year's eighth and ninth graders would have been seventh and eighth graders in 1977-78.
It is the opinion of this office the local board of education has the power and authority to transfer such funds in a fair and reasonable and proportionate manner. KRS 160.290(1) reads in relevant part that:
"Each board shall have control and management of all school funds and all public school property of its district and may use such funds and property to promote public education in such ways as it deems necessary and proper."
This involves general account school monies as well as activity fund or internal account monies. By State Board for Elementary and Secondary Education regulations, 702 KAR 3:130, Section 2, "the basic responsibility for administration and control of internal accounts shall rest with the district board of education." See also Board of Education of Anderson County v. Calvert, Ky., 321 S.W.2d 413 (1959). As stated in this case, referring to the then pertinent State Board regulation, "no district board of education may be permitted to disavow its obligation to adopt some system of management for the type of fund (activity fund) under consideration here." 321 S.W.2d at 416.
As you stated, the students who benefit from this action participated in raising at least some of this money. To cause these students to be unable to participate in some of the activities for which the activity fund monies were collected because of the local board's decision to locate them in a new school building seems unjust and unfair. In view of the authorities referred to above, we believe the board has the authority to transfer a part of each of the former junior highs' activity fund account monies to the new junior high school.