Judges: WRITTEN BY: Paul L. Douglas, Attorney General; Mel Kammerlohr, Assistant Attorney General.
Filed Date: 10/26/1983
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
REQUESTED BY: Michael L. Offner, Webster County Attorney Red Cloud, Nebraska.
When counties, each of which is under 200,000 population, join together to form an agency under the Interlocal Act provided by Neb.Rev.Stat. §§
Yes.
Neb.Rev.Stat. §
Neb.Rev.Stat. §
Subsection (5) of said section provides as follows:
No agreement made pursuant to sections
23-2201 to23-2207 shall relieve any public agency of any obligation or responsibility imposed upon it by law except that to the extent of actual and timely performance thereof by a joint board or other legal or administrative entity created by an agreement made hereunder, which performance may be offered in satisfaction of the obligation or responsibility.
The foregoing statutes are clear and unambiguous. It is a well founded rule of statutory construction that `a statute is open to construction only where language used requires interpretation or may reasonably be considered ambiguous.' Omaha Public Power District v. Nebraska StateTax Commissioner,
The Interlocal Act clearly provides that the public agencies may join together only to perform acts which they have authority to perform singularly. It further clearly provides that no agreement made under the Interlocal Act shall relieve any public agency (in this case, counties) of any obligation or responsibility imposed upon it by law except to the extent that it is performed by the joint agency.
Therefore, any acts which the joint agency legally performs are necessarily those which the individual counties could legally perform through their county boards. Since county boards must publish their proceedings and claims allowed, they cannot be relieved of this responsibility except to the extent it is accomplished by the joint agency.
It is therefore our opinion that a brief statement of the proceedings of each annual, regular or special meeting of the joint agency, together with a listing of the claims allowed, must be published in accordance with §
Respectfully submitted, PAUL L. DOUGLAS Attorney General Mel Kammerlohr Assistant Attorney General APPROVED:Paul L. Douglas Attorney General