Opinion ID: 1684481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: statutory, constitutional and federal mandates.

Text: KRS 41.110 provides: No public money shall be withdrawn from the Treasury for any purpose other than that for which its withdrawal is proposed, nor unless it has been appropriated by the General Assembly or is a part of a revolving fund, and has been allotted as provided in KRS 48.010 to 48.800, and then only on the warrant of the Finance and Administration Cabinet. The provisions of this section do not apply to withdrawals of funds from state depository banks for immediate redeposit in other state depository banks or to funds held in trust for the security of bond holders. Where the General Assembly has mandated that specific expenditures be made on a continuing basis, or has authorized a bonded indebtedness which must be paid, such is, in fact, an appropriation. Otherwise, the General Assembly has not delegated its constitutional power of appropriation to the executive department. It has even forbidden the expenditure of surplus monies in the general and road funds. KRS 48.700(8); KRS 48.710(8). There are statutes that mandate appropriations even in the absence of a budget bill. E.g., KRS 18A.015(2) (Appropriations shall be made from the general expenditure fund to the cabinet to meet the estimated pro rata share of the cost of administering the provisions of this chapter. . . .); KRS 44.100 (All amounts necessary to pay awards and cost of operation assessed by the board [of claims] against all other cabinets or agencies of the Commonwealth shall be paid out of the general fund of the Commonwealth, upon warrants drawn by the secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet upon the State Treasurer.); KRS 45A.275 (The first five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) of any Kentucky court judgment against the Commonwealth awarding damages on a contract claim under the provisions of KRS 45A.240 to 45A.270 shall be a necessary governmental expense and payment shall be approved by the Finance and Administration Cabinet and paid by the State Treasurer. Appropriations for these judgments shall be continued appropriations.); KRS 61.565(1) (Each employer participating in the State Police Retirement System. . . and each employer participating in the Kentucky Employees Retirement System. . . shall contribute annually to the respective retirement system. . . .). There are othersbut they are substantially less than legion. In those instances, the General Assembly has already made the necessary appropriations. White v. Davis, 108 Cal.App.4th 197, 133 Cal.Rptr.2d 691, 699-700 (2002), reversed in part on other grounds by White v. Davis, 30 Cal.4th 528, 133 Cal.Rptr.2d 648, 68 P.3d 74 (2003). However, the mere existence of a statute that can be implemented only if funded does not mandate an appropriation. [T]he General Assembly is permitted through the reduction or elimination of an appropriation, to effectively eliminate the efficacy of existing statutes. . . . Commonwealth ex rel. Armstrong v. Collins, 709 S.W.2d at 441. In fact, the State Senate's 2002 refusal to fund the election campaign fund established in KRS 121A.020 was the immediate cause of the collapse of that session's budget negotiations. Obviously, the mere existence of KRS 121A.020 was not a mandate to fund it. A similar crisis occurred in the federal government in 1980 when it became apparent that Congress would not pass a federal budget or a budget continuation plan before October 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year. Former United States Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti opined, when interpreting 31 U.S.C. § 1341, the Anti-Deficiency Act, which precludes any officer or employee of the government from making or authorizing the expenditure of unappropriated funds, that: [S]tatutory authority to incur obligations in advance of appropriations . . . may not ordinarily be inferred, in the absence of appropriations, from the kind of broad, categorical authority, standing alone, that often appears, for example, in the organic statutes of governmental agencies. 5 Op. Off. Legal Counsel 1, 2 (1980) (quoted in 43 Op. Atty. Gen. 293, 297 (1981)). We agree. Only those statutes specifically mandating that payments or contributions be made can be interpreted as self-executing appropriations. A mandated appropriation cannot be inferred from the mere existence of an unfunded statute. In contrast, constitutional provisions are mandatory and never directory. Arnett v. Sullivan, 279 Ky. 720, 132 S.W.2d 76, 78 (1939). Certain provisions of our Constitution mandate payments for services rendered, viz: Section 42 (The members of the General Assembly shall severally receive from the State Treasury compensation for their services. . . .); Section 74 (The Governor and Lieutenant Governor shall at stated times receive for the performance of the duties of their respective offices compensation to be fixed by law.); Section 86 (The President of the Senate shall receive for his services the same compensation which shall, for the same period, be allowed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and during the time he administers the government as Governor, he shall receive the same compensation which the Governor would have received had he been employed in the duties of his office.); Section 96 (All officers mentioned in Section 95 shall be paid for their services by salary, and not otherwise.); Section 98 (The compensation of the Commonwealth's Attorney shall be by salary and such percentage of fines and forfeitures as may be fixed by law, and such salary shall be uniform in so far as the same shall be paid out of the State Treasury, and not to exceed the sum of five hundred dollars per annum. . . .); Section 106 (In counties or cities having a population of seventy-five thousand or more, the Clerks of the respective Courts thereof (except the Clerk of the City Court), the Marshals, the Sheriffs and the Jailers, shall be paid out of the State Treasury, by salary to be fixed by law, the salaries of said officers and of their deputies and necessary office expenses not to exceed seventy-five per centum of the fees collected by said officers, respectively, and paid into the Treasury.); Section 120 (All justices and judges shall be paid adequate compensation which shall be fixed by the General Assembly. All compensation and necessary expenses of the Court of Justice shall be paid out of the State Treasury. The compensation of a justice or judge shall not be reduced during his term.); and Section 235 (The salaries of public officers shall not be changed during the terms for which they were elected. . . .). There are other constitutional mandates that can only be implemented by the expenditure of funds from the treasury. These are: Section 40 (Each House of the General Assembly shall keep and publish daily a journal of its proceedings. . . .); Section 53 (The General Assembly shall provide by law for monthly investigations into the accounts of the Treasurer and Auditor of Public Accounts. . . .); Section 147 (The General Assembly shall provide by law for the registration of all persons entitled to vote in cities and towns having a population of five thousand or more. . . .); Section 151 (The General Assembly shall provide suitable means for depriving of office any person who, to procure his nomination or election, has . . . been guilty of any unlawful use of money, or other thing of value, or has been guilty of fraud, intimidation, bribery, or any other corrupt practice. . . .); Section 183 (The General Assembly shall, by appropriate legislation, provide for an efficient system of common schools throughout the State.); Section 220 (The General Assembly shall provide for maintaining an organized militia. . . .); Section 221 (The organization, equipment and discipline of the militia shall conform as nearly as practicable to the regulations for the government of the armies of the United States.); Section 223 (The General Assembly shall provide for the safekeeping of the public arms, military records, relies and banners of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.); Section 244a (The General Assembly shall prescribe such laws as may be necessary for the granting and paying of old persons an annuity or pension.); Section 252 (It shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide by law. . . for the establishment and maintenance of an institution or institutions for the detention, correction, instruction and reformation of all persons under the age of eighteen years, convicted of such felonies and such misdemeanors as may be designated by law. Said institution shall be known as the `House of Reform.'); and Section 254 (The Commonwealth shall maintain control of the discipline, and provide for all supplies, and for the sanitary conditions of the convicts. . . .). Unlike unfunded statutes, which are creatures of the General Assembly who may choose to fund them or not, these constitutional mandates must be implemented. The Kentucky Constitution is, in matters of state law, the supreme law of this Commonwealth to which all acts of the legislature, the judiciary and any government agent are subordinate. Kuprion v. Fitzgerald, 888 S.W.2d 679, 681 (Ky.1994). The General Assembly cannot prevent the implementation of constitutional mandates by simply withholding its appropriations power. In the absence of appropriations by the General Assembly, the Treasurer must fund these constitutional mandates at no more than existing levels until the General Assembly provides otherwise. Finally, there are what the parties in this case have referred to as federal mandates, i.e., programs or requirements established by federal law that require expenditure of state funds. While the constitutionality of such mandates is currently in doubt, Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 925, 117 S.Ct. 2365, 2380, 138 L.Ed.2d 914 (1997); New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 188, 112 S.Ct. 2408, 2435, 120 L.Ed.2d 120 (1992), that issue is not before us. Nor do we decide whether a state, having accepted federal benefits, can opt out of an otherwise voluntary participation in a federal program. E.g., 29 U.S.C. § 651, et seq. (Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970); 30 U.S.C. § 1201, et seq. (Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977); 33 U.S.C. § 1251, et seq. (Clean Water Act); 42 U.S.C. § 6901, et seq., (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976); 42 U.S.C. § 7401, et seq. (Clean Air Act). We simply hold that to the extent the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2, requires compliance with any valid federal mandate, it must be funded by the Treasurer notwithstanding Section 230 of the Constitution of Kentucky. However, absent a statutory, constitutional, or valid federal mandate, Section 230 precludes the withdrawal of funds from the state treasury except pursuant to a specific appropriation by the General Assembly.