Request By:
Mr. Elmer J. George
Attorney at Law
105 West Main Street
Lebanon, Kentucky 40033
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Deputy Attorney General and Chief Counsel
You have asked the Office of the Attorney General for a formal opinion to the following question:
"Whether or not a member of the Board of Education of a particular county would be personally liable if the School Board failed to collect from the Fiscal Court the amount due under their contract with the Fiscal Court for the transportation of students to and from parochial schools, when the Fiscal Court contracted and agreed to pay this transportation expense."
It is the position of this office only that the school board has a responsibility to collect the money due under the contract with the fiscal court.
We begin by assuming the Board of Education and fiscal court have entered into a contract requiring the fiscal court to reimburse the school district on a straight per capita basis for nonpublic school students who ride public school buses. See OAG 82-392, copy attached. KRS 158.115 is the authorizing statute for this contract and absent full reimbursement under this statute by the fiscal court to the school board, the expenditure of public school monies for transporting nonpublic school children creates a constitutional violation under Section 180 as well as other provisions of the Kentucky Constitution. See Sherrard v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 294 Ky. 469, 171 S.W.2d 963 (1942) and the other cases cited in the above referenced recent opinion of this office. Therefore, failure by the school board to enforce the contract with the fiscal court, we believe, is tantamount to willful neglect of duty and could lead to removal from office. See KRS 156.132, copy attached.