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1997 Ops. St. Comp. 1 (1997)

handle is hein.nyscompop/nyscomo1997 and id is 1 raw text is: Opinion 97 - 1

Opinion 97 - 1
This opinion represents the views of the Office of the State Comptroller at the time it was
rendered. The opinion may no longer represent those views if, among other things, there have
been subsequent court cases or statutory amendments that bear on the issues discussed in
the opinion.
PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITIES -- Powers and Duties (participation in county workers'
compensation self-insurance plan)
WORKERS' COMPENSATION -- County Self-Insurance Plan (participation in by village housing
authority)
WORKERS' COMPENSATION LAW, §§62, 66, 71: A village housing authority is eligible to participate
in a workers' compensation plan of the county in which it is located, unless excluded by the county's
rules and regulations. To the extent costs are apportioned to plan participants on the basis of full
valuation of taxable real property, the authority's full valuation will be the same as that of the village.
Any experience component should be calculated based on past liability in accordance with the local
law providing for the experience rating, or the county's rules and regulations.
You ask whether a village housing authority may become a participant in a county workers'
compensation self-insurance plan and, if so, on what basis the housing authority would share in the
costs of the plan.
Pursuant to Workers' Compensation Law, article 5 (§60 et sea.), a county may, by local law, establish
a plan of workers' compensation self-insurance. Section 62 of that law provides that:
Each plan shall have at least two municipal corporations as participants. The county
shall be one of the participants in a plan. Any... other Dublic corporation may by
resolution of its governing body elect to become a participant in a plan established
in the county, or, in the case of a public corporation ... located in more than one
county, in a plan established in one of such counties; provided, however, that the
rules and regulations adopted pursuant to section sixty-five of this chapter may
exclude from participation in a plan any type of public corporation ... other than the
county and cities, towns and villages (emphasis added).
Thus, unless excluded by rules and regulations, any public corporation located within a county which
has established a plan is eligible to participate in the plan (see 1979 Opns St Comp No. 79-732,
unreported).
A public corporation for this purpose includes: (a) municipal corporations (i.e., town, village, county,
city or school district); (b) district corporations; and (c) those public benefit corporations which operate
in a territory coterminous with the county or a tax district or districts within the county (Workers'
Compensation Law, §60[1]; General Construction Law, §66[1]). A public benefit corporation is a
corporation organized to construct or operate a public improvement wholly or partly within the state,
the profits from which inure to the benefit of this or other states, or to the people thereof (General
Construction Law, §66[4]).
Municipal housing authorities have been held to constitute public benefit corporations (see Valente v
NYCHA, 201 Misc 24, 109 NYS2d 883; Public Housing Law, §§2, 3[2]; General Construction Law,
§§65[a], 66[4]; 1988 Opns St Comp No. 88-64, p 126). The territorial jurisdiction of a village housing
authority is coterminous with the territorial limits of the village (Public Housing Law, §31). Therefore,
since a village housing authority operates in a territory coterminous with a tax district within the
county, it is eligible to participate in the workers' compensation insurance plan of a county in which the
authority is located unless excluded by rules and regulations.
With respect to the sharing of costs by the housing authority, Workers' Compensation Law, §66(1)
provides generally that the costs of the plan must be apportioned to each participant in the proportion
that the full valuation of the participants' taxable real property bears to the aggregate full valuation of

Opinion 97 - 1

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