Request By:
Honorable Edward J. Rudd
Attorney at Law
Brooksville, Kentucky 41004
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of July 30, in which you refer to a proposed draft of an ordinance by the city council of Augusta, Kentucky, requiring the mayor, who is the executive officer of the city, to submit to the council a monthly operating statement relating to the city budget governed by KRS 91A.010 to 91A.060. The basic question raised appears to be whether or not under the terms of KRS 91A.030(11) the council can require the operating report authorized therein to be submitted to it on a monthly rather than quarterly basis.
KRS 91A.030(11) reads as follows:
"Administration and implementation of an adopted budget ordinance shall be the responsibility of the executive authority of the city. Such responsibility shall include the preparation and submission to the legislative body of operating statements which shall include budgetary comparisons of each governmental fund for which an annual budget has been adopted. Such reports shall be submitted not less than once every three (3) months in each fiscal year." (Emphasis added.)
The above statute places upon the mayor the responsibility for preparing operating statements involving the administration and implementation of the budget ordinance and requires such statements to be submitted to the legislative body not less than once every three months in each fiscal year. This statute by virtue of its language authorizes, we believe, the council to require such reports to be submitted at less than three-month intervals, which would, of course, include such submission on a monthly basis. In the case of City of Olive Hill v. Howard, Ky., 273 S.W.2d 387 (1954), the phrase "not less than" was declared to mean a mandatory minimum. The Court said ". . . there is no distinction between 'at least' and 'not less than,' each meaning that the prescribed amount of publication is a mandatory minimum. . . ."
The statute also indicates in general the information that must be included in the report but does not inhibit, in our opinion, the council from requiring other pertinent information in order to keep it properly informed of the current financial condition of the city.