Request By:
Hon. Robert C. Ewald
Wyatt, Grafton & Sloss
28th Floor, Citizens Plaza
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Patrick B. Kimberlin, III, Assistant Attorney General
This is in response to your recent letter asking our opinion with regard to the eligibility for participation in the Kentucky Employes Retirement System (KERS) by Seven Counties Services, Inc. (SCS) in the event that the Governor should direct their inclusion in the KERS by Executive Order. It should be noted that SCS has only recently come into existence, having apparently been incorporated in order to fill the void left by the recent bankruptcy of River Region Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board, Inc. You indicate in your letter that SCS has been designated by the Secretary of the Department for Human Resources as the agency to assist in administering mental health-mental retardation programs and clinics pursuant to applicable Kentucky statutes.
As you are aware, KRS 61.510(3) was amended in 1974 to provide, insofar as is applicable here, to permit coverage by the KERS to,
"Any other body, entity or instrumentality designated by Executive Order by the Governor, shall be deemed to be a department notwithstanding whether said body, entity or instrumentality is an integral part of state government." 1
Pursuant to the foregoing language, Executive Order 74-587 was issued on August 6, 1974 specifically making River Region Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board a participating department in the KERS. However, since that particular board has ceased to exist in light of its bankruptcy and SCS now appears to be its newly created successor, it is our opinion that SCS employes may begin to participate in the KERS upon the issuance of an Executive Order from the Governor to that effect.
We hope that the foregoing has sufficiently answered your question.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 The amendment of KRS 61.510(3) closely followed the decision of the then Kentucky Court of Appeals in Region Eight, et al v. Commonwealth, Ky., 507 S.W.2d 489 (1974) which had held employes of mental health-mental retardation corporations could not be covered by the KERS since those corporations at that time did not fall within the definition of "state department or board or agency" as used in the definition in KRS 61.510.