RE: APPROVAL OF COMMUNITY HOSPITAL BUDGET

Dear Mr. Ross:

Attorney General Mike Moore has received your letter of request and has assigned it to me for research and reply. Your letter poses the following matter for consideration:

"For background information I have attached a proposed opinion which has not been approved by the Commission. During the Commission's deliberation on May 3, 1991, it asked that Larry Clark determine whether or not Code Section 41-13-47 or other related statutes vests the Board of Supervisors with discretionary authority over a budget as submitted by a county hospital. Larry subsequently advised he could locate no case which would serve as an appropriate response.

The Commission may be inclined to view the hospital board member/paramedic relationship as a violation of Constitutional Section 109 and Code Section 25-4-105 (2) in view of a perceived "Discretion" on the part of the County Board of Supervisors as regards a county hospital's budget.

Would you please advise the Commission whether a County Board of Supervisors has authority to amend, change or increase a county hospital's budget as submitted or must they approve it or disapprove it?"

You correctly assert that the controlling statutory provision is Miss. Code Ann. Section 41-13-47, as amended, which provides:

"On or before the first Monday in September of each year, the said board of trustees shall make, enter on its minutes and file with the owner or owners, separately or jointly interested in said hospital, a proposed budget based on anticipated income and expenditures for the ensuing fiscal year. Such budget, as submitted or amended, shall be approved by the said owner or owners, as the case may be, which approval shall be evidenced by a proper order recorded upon the minutes of each such owner.

On or before the first Monday in January of each year, said board of trustees shall also make, enter on its minutes and file with such owner or owners, a full fiscal year report which shall contain a complete and correct accounting of all funds received and expended for all hospital purposes."

Assuming of course that the subject board of supervisors is one of the "owners" of the community hospital in question, it clearly must approve the hospital budget in accordance with Section 4113-47. In the above context, this office is of the opinion that the term "shall be approved" simply means that the hospital board of trustees must, before lawfully making expenditures and commitments of funds, have in hand a budget duly approved by the owner(s), i.e., the board of supervisors.

How much discretion the board of supervisors, as an owner, has presents a more difficult question. Clearly, the legislature has given broad authority to hospital boards of trustees for operation of the community hospital. This authority includes the authority and requirement noted above to propose an operating budget for approval by the owner(s). On the other hand, the county board, as owner, not only approves the budget, but has authority to appropriate money and levy taxes in support of the hospital. Considering together the provisions of state law concerning community hospitals, and in particular considering the broad authority delegated to hospital boards of trustees and the statutory requirement that it enter on its minutes a proposed budget to be presented the county board, we conclude the legislature intends that such proposed budget be approved or disapproved by the county board of supervisors. Any amendments, changes, increase or decrease should, under this legislative scheme, be initiated by the board of trustees and presented subsequently for approval by the board of supervisors.

Sincerely yours,

MIKE MOORE, ATTORNEY GENERAL

BY: Samuel W. Keyes, Jr. Assistant Attorney General

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