Request By:
Mr. Jim Nickell
Rowan County Judge Executive
Courthouse
Morehead, Kentucky 40351
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your request for an opinion involves a fiscal court meeting on the 1984-85 county budget.
Under KRS 68.240, as amended in 1984, the county judge executive is required to annually prepare a proposed budget for the expenditure of all county funds, including those from state and federal sources, to be expended by fiscal court in the next fiscal year. Under subsection (2) of that statute, the fiscal court, at a meeting or meetings held not later than June 1 of each year, must make a detailed investigation of each separate activity of the county for which the county judge executive proposes that county funds are to be expended by the fiscal court. The fiscal court must comment on the proposed budget, and may amend according to its desires, prior to the date when it is sent to the State Local Finance Officer, pursuant to KRS 68.250. Not less than twenty (20) days before the time for adoption of the county budget, the county judge executive must transmit two (2) copies of the proposed budget, including statements of both anticipated receipts and expenditures by budget funds, to the State Local Finance Officer for approval as to form and classification.
A special called meeting of your fiscal court was being conducted to have a second reading of the 1984-85 county budget, prior to its final adoption by the fiscal court, pursuant to KRS 68.260. You have written that there were in all two public hearings and an advertised first reading, and that any citizen had an opportunity to say what he liked about the proposed budget. The meeting in question was for the final reading. One citizen jumped up and said she wanted to discuss the budget. You ruled her out of order and told her about the first public hearing and reading, which were advertised in the newspaper. You told her that this was the second and final reading and that comments from citizens on the second reading were out of order. A member of fiscal court jumped up and wanted to comment on the budget, and you ruled him out of order, saying that there had been enough comment on the budget already.
Question No. 1:
"Can the presiding officer of a fiscal court meeting rule a spectator out of order?"
KRS 68.260 reads:
"(1) The proposed county budget tentatively approved by the fiscal court and approved by the state local finance officer as to form and classification shall be submitted to the fiscal court for adoption not later than July 1 of each year or within ten (10) days after receipt of the certified assessment from the department of revenue, as provided in KRS 133.180, whichever shall be later. The county judge/executive shall cause a copy of the proposed budget to be posted in a conspicuous place in the courthouse near the front door, and be published pursuant to KRS chapter 424, at least ten (10) days before final adoption by the fiscal court.
"(2) Any taxpayer or group of taxpayers may petition the fiscal court in respect to the budget or any part thereof before final adoption.
"(3) If the fiscal court rejects any part of the proposed budget, it shall make the changes in the nature and amount of funds a majority of the court considers desirable; but it has no power to make any change in the form or classification of the budget units or subdivisions of units."
31 U.S.C.A. § 6714, relating to units of local governments receiving federal revenue sharing monies, reads in part, concerning local public hearings:
"(a)(1) A State government or unit of general local government expending payments under this chapter shall hold at least one public hearing on the proposed use of the payment in relation to its entire budget. At the hearing, persons shall be given an opportunity to provide written and oral views to the governmental authority responsible for enacting the budget and to ask questions about the entire budget and the relation of the payment to the entire budget. The government shall hold the hearing at a time and a place that allows and encourages public attendance and participation.
"(2) A State government or unit of general local government holding a hearing required under this subsection or by the budget process of the government shall try to provide senior citizens and senior citizen organizations with an opportunity to present views at the hearing before the government makes a final decision on the use of the payment."
Under regulations of the Secretary for the Treasury, the hearing requirement under subsection (a)(1), of 31 U.S.C.A. § 6714, may be waived if the state budget process insures the opportunity for public attendance and participation and includes a hearing on the proposed use of a payment of revenue sharing moneys in relation to the entire budget of the local government.
KRS 68.260 makes no explicit provisons for more than one hearing, although we see no legal objection to having two hearings, provided that the plain provisions of the statute are observed by the fiscal court and its chairman.
Question No. 2 is whether your ruling a magistrate, who wished to comment on the budget, out of order was proper?
CONCLUSIONS
(1) On the facts given, and in view of the clear policy of the United States and the Commonwealth of Kentucky, it is our opinion that your ruling the citizen out of order during the second hearing was in error. Here we assume that the citizen was addressing the chair and fiscal court in an orderly manner, and that the proposed Comments would have been directed to the entire county budget, or a part or parts of it. The above cited federal law and KRS 68.260 clearly provide for a discussion of the budget by any taxpayer or group of taxpayers prior to the final adoption of the budget. Public participation and attendance is explicitly encouraged by the above legislation. The fact that you held more than one hearing has no significance in this narrow particular. KRS 68.260 must be observed in its particulars, regardless of the number of budget hearings you hold. Where a nonmember or member is disorderly, or interferes with the orderly progression of the meeting, the chairman of fiscal court can ask such person to leave the meeting room or hall; and if the offending person does not leave, the chairman can get him removed by calling on the sheriff's office or county or city police. Robert's Rules of Order, § 60, p.p. 542-543. But here we assume there was no disorder. Our conclusion is subject to the proposition that the chairman, under KRS 68.260, can properly limit the time to be given to any nonmember's discussion of the budget to some reasonable basis, considering the whole time allotted to the meeting. Cf. Robert's Rules of Order, § 15, p. 161.
(2) On the facts given, and considering the legislative policy expressed in the revenue sharing law and KRS 68.260, it is our opinion that ruling the magistrate out of order was in error for reasons given under conclusion no. (1), above. While members of the fiscal court are not mentioned explicitly in KRS 68.260, it is strongly implied that members may and should discuss the budget before its final adoption. Here again, a member's discussion can be held to a reasonable time limit. Basically, in meeting to adopt the budget, the presiding officer must permit the members composing the court to exercise their will in adopting or rejecting such proposal. That would include a reasonable amount of debate or comment on the subject, within the dictates of time limitations.
Hansbro v. Neiderhofer, Tex., 83 S.W.2d 685 (1935). In addition, the chairman of the fiscal court may employ no veto power (here you called these people out of order and would not let them address the subject of the meeting) not given him by statute. In this factual context, we can find no statutory power to sustain your action. In arriving at a budget for the expenditure of the people's money, it is inevitable that KRS 68.260 invites taxpayers' and fiscal court members' input by way of their being allowed, with a reasonable time limit frame, to voice their ideas or suggestions. In 56 Am.Jur.2d, Municipal Corporations, Etc., § 581, the purpose of such budget law is described in part at page 633:
"The purposes, generally, of statutory or charter municipal budgeting requirements are to inculcate sound business principles and practices into the municipal economy, with particular reference to avoidance of waste, extravagance, and ill-considered expenditures, and to give the members of the taxpaying public a better understanding of the financial affairs of the municipality in the anticipated disposition of public moneys."