Request By:
R. Thomas Worley
City Manager
City of Paducah
P.O. Box 2267
Paducah, Kentucky 42002-2267
Opinion
Opinion By: FREDERIC J. COWAN, ATTORNEY GENERAL; James M. Ringo, Assistant Attorney General
This is in response to your letter in which you ask:
"Does the City of Paducah have the legal right to unilaterally withdraw from the City of Paducah Police and Fireman's Retirement Fund an amount of money equal to the sum of City's prior year contributions plus interest on behalf of the 131 employees who switched to CERS and remit same to CERS without the approval of the Board of Trustees of the Paduach Police and Firemen's Fund?"
We assume that the Paducah Police and Firemen's Fund (hereafter "Retirement Fund") is operated under KRS 95.851 to 95.884.
Under these statutes, KRS 95.851 defines the Board of Trustees as follows:
"'Board' shall mean the board of trustees provided for herein as the agency responsible for the direction and operation of the affairs and business of the fund. The board shall hold title to all assets of the fund."
KRS 95.869 provides that the responsibility for the proper operation of the fund and the direction of its policies shall be vested in the board of trustees.
KRS 95.872(3) makes the city treasurer the ex officio treasurer of the board and custodian of the fund. As the ex officio custodian, he is subject to the authority and directives of the board.
Under the foregoing statutes, the Board of Trustees is in charge of the funds of the Retirement Fund. This would include the City's prior year contributions.
Thus, under the pension statutes, the City could not unilaterally withdraw from the Retirement Fund an amount of money equal to the sum of the City's prior year contributions plus interest.
The withdrawal would have to be done with the approval of the Board.