Kansas Library Laws

LIBRARIES - FUNDS - INVESTMENTS. Letter, March 9, 1976, to Ernestine Gilliland, State Librarian, Topeka, Kansas.

Synopsis: A regional library system board under K.S.A. 75-2549a et seq. is authorized to invest its idle funds under K.S.A. 12-1675 et seq.

Dear Ms. Gilliland:

You request my opinion whether a Kansas regional library system board, established under K.S.A. 75-2547 et seq., is empowered to invest funds derived from the one-half mill levy authorized by K.S.A. 75-2551.

K.S.A. 12-1675 enumerates the authorized investments of public funds by political subdivisions of the state. It commences thus:

"the governing body of any county, city, school district, area vocational-technical school or quasi-municipal corporation is hereby authorized and empowered to invest any moneys not immediately required for the purposes for which the moneys were collected or received . . . ." [Emphasis supplied.]

The term "quasi-municipal corporation" is defined to mean

"a drainage district, cemetery district, hospital district, or other governmental subdivision having authority to levy taxes."

Under K.S.A. 75-2549a, each regional system constitutes a public corporate entity, created by the legislature to serve specified public purposes and endowed with particular limited powers toward that end. As such, it is a quasi-public, or quasi-municipal, corporation. 56 Am. Jur. 2d, Municipal Corporations, § 13; 62 C.J.S., Municipal Corporations, § 5. Moreover, under K.S.A. 75-2551, it is empowered to levy taxes, not to exceed one-half mill, to be used for library purposes on all taxable property within the boundaries of each regional system.

Accordingly, I can but conclude that a regional system board constitutes a "quasi-municipally corporation" which is empowered to invest its idle funds in accordance with K.S.A. 12-1675 et seq.

- Quoted from Kansas Public Library Laws, Attorney General’s Opinions and Rules and Regulations, State Library of Kansas, March 1979.