Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has declared certain restrictions placed on the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources by Governor Andy Beshear’s administration as unlawful.
In a news release Monday, Cameron’s office said the Finance and Administration Cabinet has been negotiating master agreements to provide goods and services to state agencies at a fixed price. However, they recently started requiring state agencies to obtain quotes from three approved vendors before allowing them to purchase from the master agreements.
Despite the General Assembly empowering the department to bypass the hurdles, the Finance Cabinet continued to impose the three-quote requirement on them. Attorney General Cameron accused Governor Beshear of intentionally trying to cripple the department by instructing his Finance Cabinet to ignore the law.
In his opinion, Attorney General Cameron concluded that the Finance Cabinet violated state law by attempting to subject the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources to the requirement. He emphasized that the cabinet cannot indirectly do what the law explicitly prohibits.
Another point of contention was price caps for the department, the Finance Cabinet, and the Transportation Cabinet. According to Kentucky law, these agencies can contract certain work to a firm as long as the firm is not awarded contracts totaling more than $300,000 per fiscal year. DFWR sought clarification on whether this price cap applies to each agency individually or in the aggregate, as the Finance Cabinet argued.
Attorney General Cameron determined that the legislature’s intent was for the cap not to be aggregated. Instead, each department can award price contracts for small projects totaling $300,000 per contractor per fiscal year.
