Request By:
Hon. Robert O. Miller
County Judge/Executive
Courthouse Building
Murray, Kentucky 42071
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Patrick B. Kimberlin, III, Assistant Attorney General
This is in response to your recent letter wherein you ask our opinion as to whether the Governor of Kentucky has the authority to exempt a department or agency currently participating in the Kentucky Employes Retirement System (KERS) from such participation. You point out that effective October 15, 1976, the Kentucky Health Systems Agency-West, Inc. (KHSA-W), a private nonprofit corporation responsible for health planning in several western counties of the Commonwealth, was declared a "participating department" 1 in the KERS pursuant to Executive Order 76-1144 executed by then Governor Julian Carroll. However, the KHSA-W has since found that it has a high turnover rate among its employes which results in few of those employes ever becoming vested in the KERS. Therefore, the KHSA-W has inquired whether the Governor has the authority to exempt it by Executive Order, from continued participation in the KERS.
It is our opinion that the Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky does not have the authority to exempt by Executive Order a department of state government currently participating in the KERS from such participation. As a general rule the Governor has only such powers as are vested in him by the constitution and statutes enacted pursuant thereto.
Martin v. Chandler, Ky., 318 S.W.2d 40 (1958). KRS 61.520 establishes the authority and the manner by which the Governor may include a department or agency as a participating member in the KERS. But, we find nothing in that statute or anywhere else in Chapter 61 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes which would permit the Governor to exempt a participating department from such coverage in the KERS.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 As that term is defined in KRS 61.510(3).