Request By:
Mr. James M. Groves, Chairman
Education Committee of Circuit Clerks
Todd County Courthouse
Elkton, Kentucky 42220
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The table of county population categories in KRS 64.055 established the maximum annual salaries of circuit court clerks for 1978.
Question No. 1:
"Are those clerks who assume office between the present time and the beginning of the next term of office in January, 1982, entitled to the same salary as those former office holders?" (I am referring to those who are appointed or win election for the remainder of the term) Or do they begin at a salary which is in the level of the population of their county?"
The answer is "yes", under current law. Those successors in the clerk's office merely take over the office at its current salary level. The salary level concept, as expressed in KRS 64.055, is not a personal thing. It relates to the office of circuit clerk in the particular county. KRS 64.055 is so written as to evolve in 1978 a base maximum salary. Since you refer to clerks who will take office in 1979 and subsequent years, the guidelines in paragraphs 1 through 5 of the statute do not lend themselves to the notion that new clerks should be given the maximum for the particular county under the table. Thus the use of the accretive development of the salary in the particular county is the only way we can make sense out of it. Of course, under KRS 65.057, all circuit clerks may receive annual salary increases for each year's services, as determined by the Supreme Court, subject to the maximum rubber dollar amount for each particular year. The maximum possible for circuit clerks in 1979 under the rubber dollar principle is $34,104.00. Circuit court clerks were given statewide status, for purposes of § 246, Kentucky Constitution, in KRS 30A.170 and 30A.180. See Commonwealth v. Hesch, Ky., 395 S.W.2d 362 (1965), for the rubber dollar principle.
Question No. 2:
"Will those persons who assume office for the term beginning in January, 1982, be entitled to the salary of the circuit court clerk who leaves office at that time, or will that newly elected circuit court clerk have a beginning salary at the level set forth in the statutes according to the population of the county?"
As we said above, a newly elected clerk taking office in 1982, under current law, would begin at the salary being paid to the immediate predecessor. KRS 64.055 simply contains no punitive provision for the new clerk's going to the foot of the class.