State AG Opinions
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Could a Barnwell County vocational instructor also serve on county council?
The AG predicted that a court would likely find no master-servant conflict on the stated facts. The instructor answered to the career center director and school board, while county council’s budget…
Could a Myrtle Beach planning commissioner also sit on a downtown redevelopment nonprofit board?
The AG concluded in 2006 that serving on both bodies would not violate South Carolina’s dual-office rule. Planning commission membership was an office, but the private nonprofit redevelopment board…
Did California’s preliminary and clear speech-language pathology credentials meet federal Medicaid reimbursement standards?
The California AG concluded in 2006 that both newly specified credentials met the federal speech pathologist standards for Medicaid reimbursement. The preliminary credential matched the…
If a South Carolina county delayed reassessment, which property value counted as the 2007 base-year value?
The AG concluded that a county using its statutory option to postpone revised values should use the values actually applied for tax year 2007 as the base-year fair market values, even if a…
Could Louisiana's governor call an incorporation election when a petition's voter certificate only counted valid signatures?
No. The AG said the Stoney Point petition lacked the registrar's required certification that at least 25% of electors living in the proposed village had signed. The governor should return it for…
Did an old right-of-way deed exempt Patterson landowners from a street-upgrade assessment?
No. The AG read Patterson's old right-of-way deed as relieving the landowners of day-to-day upkeep costs, not special assessments for a major Catherine Street upgrade. It also said the city lacked…
Did delivering unsolicited advertising circulars to a road right-of-way count as littering in South Carolina?
The AG said such delivery probably was not littering under the state statute. He relied on an earlier opinion finding that unsolicited newspapers and circulars were not the discarded material the…
Can a Delaware citizen force a public authority to calculate exactly how much it spent on a specific lawsuit if that figure was never tracked separately?
No, according to this opinion. Because the authority's attorney billed for the lawsuit together with other legal work in combined quarterly invoices, the AG found FOIA doesn't require breaking out a…
Must a Delaware housing authority produce requested emails if its backup copies were overwritten and no one saved them elsewhere?
No, in this case. An IT chief described the 90-day backup overwrite cycle in an affidavit, and the Authority's counsel confirmed that no responsive emails were saved elsewhere. The AG accepted the…
Could a city give money to a nonprofit chamber of commerce whose president was a council member and whose employee was that member’s spouse?
The California AG said in 2006 that the council could make the donation under a remote-interest exception if the member disclosed the financial interest, the council recorded it, and the member did…
Did a Colorado governor have to expressly authorize lethal force each time the National Guard was activated?
No. The AG concluded that a National Guard activation implicitly carried authority to use lethal force when necessary to protect infrastructure critical to life, safety, and immediate public health,…
Did a Scott city council member lose the seat after moving out of the ward that elected him?
The AG said a Scott alderman had to remain a resident of the ward that elected him. Moving out did not itself vacate the seat automatically: the board of aldermen had cause to declare a vacancy…
Does a Texas clerk charge the $37 civil filing fee on a bail bond forfeiture?
The Attorney General concluded that neither of two new court fees adopted by House Bill 11 in 2006 applies to bail bond forfeiture matters. The $37 filing fee under Local Government Code section…
Is property owned by a city's public-private partnership exempt from Texas property tax?
The Attorney General concluded that there is no automatic answer, only a framework. To be exempt under the Texas Constitution and Tax Code section 11.11(a), property must be both publicly owned and…
Is my personal-and-business vehicle tax-free in Texas if I don't have to render it?
The Attorney General concluded that being excepted from the rendition requirement is not the same as being exempt from tax. Tax Code section 22.01(k) (added by House Bill 809 in 2005) says an…
Is the City of Millican, Texas still legally a city?
The Attorney General concluded that Millican is best treated as a special-law municipality, because although it first incorporated under general law in 1866, the legislature re-incorporated it by…
Did EMT pay and employer deferred compensation count as basic salary for Washington firefighter pensions?
In the 2006 fact pattern, the AG counted salary increases for EMT certification required of all firefighters as basic salary, but excluded employer contributions to deferred compensation. The…
What did Idaho's AG say about Ron Gillett's November 2006 wolf-regulation initiative?
This was Ron Gillett's third 2006 wolf-removal initiative, substantively identical to the March 9 version. Wasden cleared it on single-subject grounds (a single subject of wolf regulation),…
Could South Carolina DMV publish DUI license-suspension names and addresses under federal driver-privacy law?
The AG did not decide whether the federal Driver Privacy Protection Act displaced South Carolina’s publication requirement. He identified possible federal exceptions but found no decisive authority…
Can a Delaware county council discuss which outside consulting firm to hire in a private executive session?
No, according to this opinion. FOIA's executive-session exemptions for job applicants and personnel only protect individuals seeking or holding public employment, not independent contractors and…
Could a tribe conduct Class III gaming on an individual Indian’s trust allotment outside a reservation or on land it began governing after 1988?
The California AG concluded in 2006 that either situation could qualify only in limited circumstances. Outside a reservation, trust or restricted title alone was insufficient: a tribe also had to…
Could Louisiana fund sex-offender registry appropriations when the named bill never passed?
Yes. The AG said Treasury should fund the two Sex Offender Registry Technology Fund appropriations because Act 663 allowed payment when the relevant provisions of failed House Bill 695 were enacted…
Who could sell Natchitoches Parish Hospital, and what approvals and uses of the proceeds were required?
The AG said ownership was a factual question: the district would sell if it owned the hospital, or the parish would sell if it owned it. It said a sale required voter and Attorney General approval,…
Could a South Carolina homeowners association bar a resident from displaying the U.S. flag?
The AG said federal law barred a homeowners association from broadly prohibiting a member’s flag display, subject to permitted restrictions on how it was displayed. South Carolina law protected one…
Could a South Carolina town use its own summons instead of the uniform traffic ticket for careless driving?
The AG said a town had to use the uniform traffic ticket when citing a traffic-related municipal ordinance such as careless operation. He left unresolved whether using a town summons triggered…
Did Connecticut's ban on paying stem cell donors also bar insurance coverage or reimbursement of egg retrieval costs?
No, under the 2006 statute the AG analyzed. Insurance payment for earlier infertility treatment did not bar donation of unused materials, and reimbursement of direct egg retrieval costs or adverse…
Would raising school districts’ CalSTRS employer contributions automatically raise California’s Proposition 98 school-funding minimum?
No. The California AG concluded in 2006 that raising the employer contribution rate paid by school districts to CalSTRS would not, by itself, increase the state’s Proposition 98 funding obligation.…
Could a Louisiana school board modify a mandatory drug expulsion to provide homebound instruction?
Yes. The AG said Evangeline Parish's school board could modify the superintendent's drug-related expulsion decision and offer homebound instruction, even though the parish lacked a drug court or…
Can Ascension Parish's president veto an informal access-channel advisory board or its guidelines?
No. The AG said the parish president's charter veto reached ordinances, codes, resolutions, and budget items, but not an advisory board appointed without an ordinance or the guidelines it followed.…
Could St. Bernard Parish suspend voter approval for new fees after Hurricane Katrina?
No. The AG said the parish council could not suspend the charter rule requiring voters to approve proposals for a new or increased sales and use tax, charge, or fee. The charter's…
Could Louisiana’s medical board obtain final malpractice panel opinions after a payment was reported?
Yes in the situation addressed. The AG said Act 306 barred reporting the filing of a request for medical review, but did not prevent the Patients' Compensation Fund Oversight Board from furnishing a…
If a clerk's office pays the clerk's employee retirement contribution, does that payment count toward the clerk's salary cap?
Yes. The AG said an office-paid employee contribution for a clerk was additional compensation subject to the statutory salary maximum. The retirement statute excluded it from benefit calculation,…
Did Connecticut meet federal requirements for postconviction DNA testing and evidence preservation?
The AG concluded in 2006 that Connecticut met both parts of the Justice for All Act of 2004 requirement: a process for postconviction DNA testing and reasonable preservation of biological evidence.…
Which interest rate applied when Maryland reduced a pension for service transferred from a noncontributory plan?
The AG said the receiving contributory system should use its regular interest rate, the rate it credits to member contributions, when calculating the hypothetical contributions and interest used to…
Who had to deposit South Carolina deed-recording fees and file the fee return?
The AG inferred that the county office responsible for collecting deed-recording fees also made the daily deposits and filed the return. Ordinarily that was the clerk of court or register of deeds,…
Could timber tracts in different South Carolina counties be combined for agricultural-use property taxes?
The AG read the timber-property law to allow qualifying tracts in different counties to be combined because it imposed no same-county rule. He also said a written management plan was evidence, not a…
Could a Jasper County resident serve on both an election board and another county board?
The AG said membership on the election board plus either a county transportation committee or zoning appeals board violated the state dual-office rule. A contractor could serve on the planning…
Did Chesnee need a voter referendum before transferring its sewer system to a sanitary sewer district?
The AG said yes. South Carolina law authorized municipalities to sell sewer facilities, but required the city council to submit the proposed sale to qualified city voters before transferring the…
Could a California county give trash haulers exclusive areas and set rates, and which planning meetings had to be open?
The California AG concluded in 2006 that a county could assign exclusive collection areas and set maximum rates. The board had to allow public comment before acting, but staff meetings with haulers…
Did the NC State Personnel Commission have the legal authority to roll out 'career banding' (a system that collapses many narrow job classes into a small number of broad classes with wide pay ranges)?
Yes. The NC AG concluded that the General Assembly delegated to the State Personnel Commission plenary authority under Chapter 126 to design and adopt classification plans (G.S. 126-4(1)),…
Is a city water rights fee charged to developers an illegal impact fee in Texas?
The Attorney General concluded that a water rights fee imposed solely to procure a water supply, rather than to pay for building physical facilities, is not an 'impact fee' under chapter 395 of the…
Must a Louisiana sheriff's employee repay personal calls made on a department cell phone?
No reimbursement was required for occasional personal calls on the department's block-minute plan if the plan was sized for official needs and the calls added no cost. The sheriff's request assumed…
Did Louisiana law impose the same disciplinary penalties on teachers and students for the same misconduct?
No. The AG said Louisiana then had no law imposing identical penalties on teachers and students for the same conduct. It explained that separate teacher-tenure provisions allowed discipline or…
Could Richwood terminate a police officer on temporary disability, and what benefits still remained?
The AG said Richwood could terminate the officer if injury prevented him from performing his duties, so long as the discharge was not retaliation for claiming workers’ compensation. It said accrued…
Could a South Carolina sheriff refuse a municipal prisoner after a mental-health center cleared her for jail?
The AG said the sheriff generally had to accept a properly presented municipal prisoner when no life-threatening condition or other statutory ground required different handling. On the facts…
Where did CalPERS have to deposit and spend Medicare Part D retiree drug subsidies, and who received Medicare Advantage payments?
The California AG concluded in 2006 that Retiree Drug Subsidy payments for CalPERS supplemental plans belonged in the Public Employees’ Contingency Reserve Fund for specified uses benefiting the…
Was the Stingrays hockey team’s paid Chuck-A-Puck contest illegal gambling in South Carolina?
After receiving test results, the AG changed his assessment and predicted a court would treat the described promotion as predominantly a game of skill rather than a prohibited lottery. He accepted…
How can two New York towns in different counties combine their police departments into one shared service?
By an intermunicipal agreement under General Municipal Law article 5-G, specifically § 119-o. Municipal Home Rule Law § 10 does not authorize two towns in different counties to consolidate police…
Can a Texas city spend its bond-type funds on a different water project than first planned?
The Attorney General concluded that the City of Copperas Cove may use the proceeds of its 2001 certificates of obligation for 'improvements to the City water and wastewater system,' including the…
Can a Texas deputy sheriff drive a county patrol car for off-duty security jobs?
The Attorney General concluded that a sheriff may let deputies use county patrol vehicles for off-duty security work without reimbursing the county only when the use satisfies the public-purpose…
Can Texas deny your driver's license renewal for missing court on any charge?
The Attorney General concluded that the chapter 706 'failure to appear' program, which lets the Department of Public Safety deny a driver's license renewal, is not limited to traffic tickets, but it…
Can a small Texas town annex a strip of roadway right-of-way next to the city limits?
The Attorney General concluded that a Type A general-law city with fewer than 5,000 residents can annex land it does not own only if that land sits inside its half-mile extraterritorial…
Does an open meetings notice have to say a city council will vote on a motion, not just discuss it?
The Attorney General concluded that the Open Meetings Act requires a city to give advance notice of the topic that will come before the council, here a 'personal endorsement' motion, so a reader is…
Can a county agency keep providing foster care and case management for CPS after Texas privatized those services?
The Attorney General concluded that after Senate Bill 6's overhaul of child protective services, the Department of Family and Protective Services may not contract with a governmental entity, such as…
What can a Texas county attorney spend hot check fund money on?
The Attorney General concluded that money in a county attorney's hot check fund may be spent only to defray the salaries and expenses of the prosecutor's office, at the attorney's sole discretion,…
What are the rules for Texas homestead preservation districts and their tax-increment reinvestment zones?
The Attorney General read Chapter 373A, the 2005 law (which by its population criteria applied only to Austin) that lets a qualifying city create homestead preservation districts and reinvestment…
Could a South Carolina Native American recognition committee vote when one member recused and a seat was vacant?
The AG said three members still had to attend to make a quorum, and a recused attendee could count toward it. If the other three members were present and voting, two affirmative votes sufficed to…
Did a county option to tax newly completed buildings sooner violate South Carolina’s property-tax uniformity rules?
The AG said the 2006 county-option law appeared consistent with two state constitutional uniformity clauses but could conflict with the clause requiring equal assessment of property classes…
Could a South Carolina agency demand $434,250 to let a requester inspect public records?
The AG said an agency could charge only actual, lowest-possible production costs and could not use excessive fees to deny records indirectly. He said the $434,250 quote appeared excessive on its…
Could a Louisiana school board member also work as a deputy clerk of court part time?
No. The AG concluded that a school board member could not also hold any office or employment with a clerk of court. Calling the deputy clerk position part time did not change that result.
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