Request By:
Mr. Robert N. Frazer
315 Clark Street
P.O. Box 369
Marion, Kentucky 42064
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
This is in reply to your letter asking whether a city-county airport board is required to file an annual financial statement.
KRS 424.220 deals with the publication of financial statements and provides in part as follows:
". . . [E]very public officer of any school district, city, county, or subdivision or district less than a county, whose duty it is to collect, receive, have the custody, control or disbursement of public funds, and every officer of any board or commission of a city, county or district whose duty it is to collect, receive, have the custody, control or disbursement of funds collected from the public in the form of rates, charges or assessments for services or benefits, shall at the sipiration of each fiscal year prepare an itemized, sworn statement of the funds collected, received, held or disbursed by him during the fiscal year just closed, unless he has complied with KRS 424.230. . . ."
In connection with the material which must be contained within the annual financial statement, KRS 424.220 states in part:
". . . The statement shall show the amount of funds collected and received, from what sources received, the amount disbursed, the date of each disbursement, for what purpose expended, and to whom paid, except that only the totals of amounts paid to each individual as salary or commission and public utility bills need to be shown. . . ."
We assume that the city-county air board to which you refer was created under and exists pursuant to KRS 183.132 et seq. Such an air board is a body politic and corporate with the usual corporate attributes. KRS 183.133 provides in part that an air board shall establish and fix reasonable rates, charges and fees for the use of the landing area, ramps and other common aviation facilities. The air board shall also have power to fix rates, charges or fees by contract, or by publishing general rates, charges or fees for commercial vendors, concessionaires, or other persons for the use or occupancy of terminal or other ground use facilities. Furthermore, in order to provide money for the establishment and operation of airports, the legislative body of any governmental unit owning or operating an airport, or having any rights or interests therein, may make an annual appropriation from its general fund or it may make an annual levy to collect a tax on taxable property situated in the governmental unit for airport development.
Thus, since an air board organized and existing pursuant to KRS 183.132 et seq. is entrusted with the control and custody of public funds, the officers of the air board must comply with the provisions of KRS 424.220 concerning the preparation and publication of an annual financial statement. See OAG 72-479, copy enclosed, at page three.