Request By:
Mr. Kenny Chapman
Logan County Clerk
Courthouse
Russellville, Kentucky 42276
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You request our construction of KRS 64.530(4), relating to the fiscal court's setting the number of deputy county clerks and assistants. We assume from your letter that the fiscal court in 1977 (year of the election of the county clerk) set the number of the county clerk's deputies and assistants, if any.
Now, you are asking whether the county clerk can hire a bookkeeper who would not be considered a deputy county clerk.
KRS 64.530(3) and (4), in effect, requires that the fiscal court fix the number of deputies and assistants of the county clerk (a fee officer) not later than the first Monday in May in the year of the election. It is our opinion that the number of deputies and assistants of the county clerk cannot be changed during the term. A bookkeeper would be an assistant, and this prohibition against change in the number of deputies also extends to assistants of the county clerk.