Request By:
Honorable Jacob V. Garner
Pulaski County Judge
P.O. Box 712
Somerset, Kentucky 42501
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
"The Fiscal Court of Pulaski County on April 17, 1974, by unanimous vote, raised the salary of the Pulaski County Judge from $5,000 per year to $9,900 per year [$825 per month] to be paid from the general fund", according to your letter. The 1974 resolution of the fiscal court recites that the salary adjustment is made in implementation of S.B. 236 [Ch. 254, 1974 Session]. You ask whether this action was legal.
The answer is "yes". S.B. 236 created KRS 64.527, providing for an annual adjustment of compensation of various county constitutional officers, including the county judge, based upon the adjustment of the monetary level of $7200 per year [§ 246, Constitution] in terms of the current Consumer Price Index, and as applied in the rubber dollar formula outlined in Commonwealth v. Hesch, Ky., 395 S.W.2d 362 (1965); and Matthews v. Allen, Ky., 360 S.W.2d 135 (1962). S.B. 236 amended KRS 64.535 in providing that the annual compensation maximum for that year for the subject county constitutional officials, including the county judge, would be $14,300, to be paid solely out of statutory fees and salaries received by them during the calendar year.
Under the facts given, it is clear that the Pulaski Fiscal Court in 1974, in "adjusting" your compensation upward, was merely implementing the legislative adjustment of S.B. 236, and as permitted under the rubber dollar principle enunciated by our appellate court. The court in Dennis v. Rich, Ky., 434 S.W.2d 632 (1968) 637, approved the corollary principle that where the salary fixing power remains unexhausted, the compensation adjustment may be fixed any time during the term. Here it is obvious that the fiscal court had not exhausted its implementing authority in compensation adjustment. Your compensation was $5,000 per year prior to the fiscal court's action in increasing your compensation, paid out of the county treasury, to $9,900 per year. Even after that action their salary fixing power was unexhausted, since they could have adjusted your compensation up to $14,300 per year.