Request By:
Mr. Jack H. Sims
Hart County Judge Executive
P. O. Box 486
Munfordville, Kentucky 42765
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your questions read as follows:
1. Does the Fiscal Court have the legal right to routinely spend General County or Revenue Sharing Funds to pay for rock on private drives or lanes?
2. Does the Fiscal Court have the legal right to use County equipment to haul rock purchased by private citizens on private lanes and drives?
The answer to both questions is that the use of county funds, personnel or equipment, to improve or maintain private drives or lanes is illegal and unconstitutional. County money, employees, and equipment can be used only on county road systems or other property belonging to the county. Sections 3 and 171 of the Kentucky Constitution establish the principle that tax money of the governmental unit may only be spent for public purposes, not private onex. In addition, § 180 of the Kentucky Constitution provides that no tax levied and collected for one purpose shall ever be devoted to another purpose. County expenditures are made under a budget. The expenditure cannot exceed the budgeted amount, and the budgeted funds may by spent for only authorized county public or governmental purposes. See KRS 68.240, 68.300, and McGuffey v. Hall, Ky., 557 S.W.2d 401 (1977) 416.
Judge Thomas, in Shanks v. Commonwealth, 219 Ky. 212, 292 S.W. 837 (1927) 842, wrote that the courts have used the rule of strict construction to protect taxpayers in determining whether public funds are spent for public purposes for the simple reason that experience has shown that where control and use of a fund are lodged in the same person, a situation arises which is subject to flagrant abuse.
The court has held that where taxes levied and collected for one purpose are expended for another, the officers responsible for such illegal expenditure are jointly and severally liable to the county for the amount so illegally spent. Bernard v. McFarland, 267 Ky. 210, 101 S.W.2d 913 (1937) 914.