Request By:
Mr. Vernon Hall
Letcher County Sheriff
Courthouse
Whitesburg, Kentucky 41858
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
It is our understanding that the fiscal court of your county has indicated to you that they will not pay for your telephone bill involving your phone in the sheriff's office.
It is well established that necessary and official calls made over a telephone in the sheriff's office, and relating strictly to the statutory functions of the sheriff, may be paid for by the fiscal court's allowing the sheriff credit for such telephone costs out of his excess fees [See Funk v. Milliken, Ky., 317 S.W.2d 499 (1958)], where such costs are properly documented.
However, it is our understanding that the fees of your office are not sufficient to fund such operating costs.
Assuming that the fees of your office are not sufficient to pay for these telephone calls, we must then look up to the Hills of Legal Help where we find that it is the fiscal court which is responsible in this situation for paying for such actual and necessary telephone calls made in your office. See Barkley v. Gatewood, 285 Ky. 179, 147 S.W.2d 373 (1941). In Barkley, the court emphasized that the telephone is now in such common and general use and so well recognized as a necessary appurtenance and fixture in the office of the sheriff as to be a part of the equipment of a suitable and convenient office. See also KRS 67.080 relating to the powers and duties of fiscal court. Thus it is incumbent upon the fiscal court of Letcher County that the sheriff have a telephone and that the actual and necessary official calls be paid for out of the county treasury in order that the sheriff's office can function properly as required by the statutes. There is definitely no other method of communication open to the sheriff, other than the telephone, by which he can properly conduct the business of that office. Of course, expenditures for such telephone are subject to proper budgeting as provided in KRS Chapter 68. This simply means that there must be available money among the current revenues of the county with which to fund this telephone operation.