Request By:
Mr. Ed L. Tillie, Director
Administrative Services
Kentucky River District Health Department
825 High Street
Hazard, Kentucky 41701
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Behsear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Reference is made to KRS 212.040 to 212.920, and the establishment and maintenance of a county and district health department.
Effective July 1, 1973, the Perry County Fiscal Court voluntarily associated itself with five other Eastern Kentucky fiscal courts to form the Kentucky River District Health Department.
Recently the Perry County Fiscal Court voted a resolution withdrawing from that district. However, the Perry County Board of Health voted to remain in the district.
Question: Which vote controls as to withdrawal from the district?
The formation of a district health department requires the formal action of the fiscal courts of the counties desiring to form such a district health department. See KRS 212.820, 212.840, and 212.850. The cost of creating, establishing, maintaining, and operating such a district health department is borne by the participating counties under an equitable sharing formula. KRS 212.840. See OAG 80-4, copy enclosed.
When a district department is created, all powers and duties of the county boards of health, except as otherwise provided in KRS 212.920, under existing statutes are transferred to the district board of health. KRS 212.850.
There are no express statutory provisions relating to a county's withdrawal from a district health department compact. However, it is significant that only through the direct action of fiscal courts can a district health department be formed. KRS 212.840 and 212.850. Now, since there is nothing in the statutes suggesting that the joining in the formation of a district health department is irrevocable, it is our opinion that, by reasonable implication, the Perry County Fiscal Court can withdraw from this district, any time, provided that it settles any outstanding financial or contractual obligations involving the district. See
Padgett v. Sensing, Ky., 438 S.W.2d 501, exposing the principle that before a library is dissolved, it must settle its debts.
Here we believe that the authority to get into a district health arrangement carries with it implicitly the power to get out of it.
Since the county health department is a creature of the fiscal court [see KRS 212.040] by way of the fiscal court's creating and financially maintaining the county health department, and since the county health department has no role in the creation of a district health department, it is our opinion that there is nothing the county health department can do by way of preventing the withdrawal of Perry Courty Fiscal Court from the district health department compact.