Opinion ID: 1204890
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Duties of the State Treasurer

Text: The appellee Attorney General contends that the West Virginia Trust Fund Act has impermissibly altered the core functions and duties inherent in the constitutional executive office of state treasurer. The Attorney General argues that certain core functions are implicit in the constitutionally designated title of the office, and West Virginia Trust Fund, Inc., is interfering with these functions by managing the pension and workers' compensation funds. The appellant Trust Fund, Inc., argues that the treasurer has no inherent duties and has only those powers which are granted by the Legislature. We decline at this point to venture deeply into this quagmire of divining core functions. We simply hold that we find no inherent duties of the state treasurer which are affected by the West Virginia Trust Fund Act. The office of treasurer, along with the other elective offices of the executive department, is established by West Virginia Constitution, Article VII, section 1. That provision states, in pertinent part: The executive department shall consist of a governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, commissioner of agriculture and attorney general, who shall be, ex officio, reporter of the court of appeals.... They... shall perform such duties as may be prescribed by law. In our seminal decision of Manchin v. Browning, 170 W.Va. 779, 296 S.E.2d 909 (1982), we analyzed the powers that Article VII, section 1 granted to the attorney general. We concluded that the plain language of this constitutional provision failed to confer common law powers on the attorney general such as those found in England and British North America during the colonial period. The powers and duties of the Attorney General are specified by the constitution and by rules of law prescribed pursuant thereto. Syllabus Point 1, Manchin, supra . We revisited this holding in State ex rel. Fahlgren Martin, Inc. v. McGraw, 190 W.Va. 306, 438 S.E.2d 338 (1993), where the Attorney General argued that his oath of office and the Constitution required that he halt any contract which he believed to be illegal and investigate any wrongful acts inherent in the contract. After reviewing the Constitution and all applicable statutes, we found the office of attorney general had no inherent powers to review state contracts beyond those granted by the Legislature. We concluded: The West Virginia Constitution and W.Va.Code § 5A-3-13 (1993) grant the Attorney General the duty to approve a contract as to form only.... The Attorney General cannot hold a contract in his office awaiting the outcome of a trial, investigation or other proceedings. The Attorney General has no investigative powers in connection with the contract. He cannot sue on the contract on behalf of the State unless otherwise authorized by statute. Syllabus Point 3, in part, Fahlgren Martin, supra. We believe the same rationale applies in the instant case. The appellees have not directed us to any relevant authorities that would suggest the state treasurer has any inherent duties beyond those specifically spelled out in the Constitution, [13] and certainly no duties impaired by the Act. Our review of the constitutional debates surrounding the formation of the executive branch and the office of treasurer supports the conclusion that our founders intended for the Legislature to define most of the responsibilities of the office. [14] The powers and duties of the state treasurer are only as specified by the Constitution and by rules of law prescribed pursuant thereto. We find nothing repugnant to this principle in the West Virginia Trust Fund Act.