Request By:
Mr. Joseph N. Barbieri, Director
Fayette County Legal Aid, Inc.
317 West Short Street
Lexington, Kentucky 40507
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 whether the Fayette County Legal Aid, Inc. is eligible to participate in the Kentucky Employes Retirement Systems (KERS). You point out that this organization is a Kentucky non-profit corporation organized for the purposes set forth in Chapter 31 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes and that it receives a portion of its funding from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. You conclude from the foregoing facts that Fayette County Legal Aid, Inc. satisfies the requirements for participation in the KERS.
It is our belief that the Fayette County Legal Aid, Inc. does not qualify as a state department or board or agency eligible to participate in the KERS. KRS 61.510(3). The mere fact that your organization is partially or even substantially funded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky or that it is a non-profit corporation which provides certain services pursuant to statutory authorization does not mean that it is a state department, board or agency for purposes of participation in the KERS.
In Kentucky Region Eight, et al. v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, Ky., 507 S.W.2d 489, at 491 (1974), it was held that a retirement system ordinarily is an integral part of an overall personnel program which would also include salary increment schedules and merit system protections. In other words, Kentucky Region Eight, et al. v. Commonwealth of Kentucky holds that KRS 61.510 was not intended to bring into the KERS persons who are not considered state employes for any other purpose. It is only those departments, boards or agencies that are such integral parts of state government as to come within regular patterns of administrative organization and structure and would be subject to standard personnel policies having general application in the administration of government which are eligible to participate in the KERS.
However, we have subsequently been advised that employes of your organization are not under the state merit system, state salary schedules or any other state personnel regulations. Accordingly, we believe the Fayette County Legal Aid, Inc. does not qualify as one of these departments, boards or agencies and thus its employes are not eligible to participate in the KERS.