Request By:
Mr. John R. Cox
Rowan County Attorney
P.O. Box 9
Morehead, Kentucky 40351
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You ask whether it is proper for the magistrates on fiscal court to prepare and submit for formal vote an administrative code when the county judge/executive has failed to submit one.
The fiscal court must adopt an administrative code. KRS 68.005 and 67.080(2)(c). However, it is the responsibility of the county judge/executive to prepare the code and make any needed suggestions for its amendment. KRS 67.710(2). Now between the two, the county judge/executive and the other members of fiscal court, they must see to it that such a code is adopted. But bear in mind that only the county judge/executive can propose a code. The rest of the fiscal court, along with the county judge/executive, then votes to accept or reject the code. However, this process of submission, rejection, amendment, cannot be finally used to do nothing about the final adoption of the code.
The initiating of or proposing the code rests only with the county judge/executive. If the legislature had intended that the other members [other than county judge/executive] take the initiative in proposing the code, it could so easily have said so by statute. However, the statutes are silent in that respect. All the members of fiscal court must keep in mind their joint responsibility.
The appellate court has said that it has a duty to construe the statutes literally if it is reasonably possible to do so.