Request By:
Terry Shockley
201 Willowcrest
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Greg Holmes, Assistant Attorney General
This is in response to your letter to the Attorney General in which you request the opinion of this office concerning an interpretation of the language of Senate Bill 219 as enacted by the 1982 Kentucky General Assembly. Specifically, you seek an interpretation of the words "preference" and "price range" as used in Senate Bill 219. Senate Bill 219, which amended KRS 45A, provides in pertinent part:
"SECTION 2. A NEW SECTION OF KRS CHAPTER 45A IS CREATED TO READ AS FOLLOWS:
(1) All governmental bodies and political subdivisions of this state shall, when purchasing commodities or services, give first preference to the products made by the department of corrections, division of prison industries, as required by KRS 197.210. Second preference shall be given to the Kentucky industries for the blind as described in KRS 163.450 thru 163.470 and agencies of the severely handicapped as described in Section 1 of this Act.
(2) The department of finance shall make a list of commodities and services provided by these agencies and organizations available to all governmental bodies and political subdivisions. The list shall identify in detail the commodity or service, the agency or organization may supply and the price.
(3) The department of finance shall annually determine the current price range for the commodities and services offered from its experience in purchasing these commodities or services on the open market. In no case shall the prices quoted by these agencies or organizations exceed the current price range."
The question you raise presents a problem in statutory construction which is readily resolved by reference to the relevant statutory and case law. KRS 446.080(4) provides "all words and phrases shall be construed according to the common and approved usage of language, but technical words and phrases and such others which may have acquired peculiar and appropriate meaning in the law shall be construed according to such meanings." In
Head v. Commonwealth, 163 Ky., 603 177 SW 31 (1915) the court laid down the following rule of statutory construction. "The court will seek the legislative will and construe the statute by giving the words the meaning which necessarily follows the context."
In order to ascertain the legislative intent behind Senate Bill 219 ordinary meanings should be applied to the terms "preference" and "price range" . As defined in Webster's New World Dictionary, preference means: "2. the right, power, or opportunity of prior choice or claim." "Range" is defined as "the limits of possible variations of amount and degree, etc." The legislative intent behind this amendment to KRS 45A can best be understood by viewing the terms "preference" and "price range" together-as one concept. The word preference in subsection (1) means that Kentucky must give second chance to the Kentucky Industries for the Blind and other agencies for the handicapped as designated in Senate Bill 219 to sell their products if the products made by the Department of Corrections, Division of Prison Industries, do not fall within the stated price ranges mentioned in subsection (3). In subsection (3) the term "price range" means the level of cost of services and products on today's open market.