Request By:
Mr. Ernest Carl, Jr.
Chief
Woodford County Police Department
Woodford County Courthouse
Versailles, Kentucky 40383
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
As the Woodford County Police Chief, you seek our opinion as to the officers' uniform allowance.
While the county judge may establish a county police force, pursuant to KRS 70.540, such a department can never rise to the dignity of a regular and effective police force until and unless it is properly funded by orders of the fiscal court. That statute is strangely silent about the proper funding of a county police force.
Where the need for a county police force is fairly made out, and the police force is so established by the county judge/executive to adequately meet that need, the fiscal court has a duty to fund the operation by establishing reasonable salaries for the policemen and providing necessary supplies and equipment, including necessary uniforms, through appropriate budgetary action.
Prior to 1978, there were several additional statutory sections relating to the county police force: KRS 70.550 [rules and regulations as to the county police force]; KRS 70.560 [compensation of members and providing equipment by fiscal court] and 70.570 [powers and duties of county police force]. These statutes were amended by the Statutes Reviser's bill, 1978 Acts [Ch. 384, §§ 165, 166 and 167 [county judge/executive was substituted for county court]. However, in the same session [Ch. 118, § 19], the foregoing statutory sections, 70.550, 70.560, and 70.570 were expressly repealed. And pursuant to KRS 7.136(3), the repeal legislation governs.
KRS 70.580, et seq., deals with a county police retirement system. However, since we are now left with only KRS 70.540 and the retirement statutes, it is obvious that the pressing question is getting a county police force organized, and retirement in a more distant background.
It is inconceivable that the General Assembly would provide for the organizing of a county police force by the county judge/executive and then leave him stranded on the sandbar of fiscal futility. To the contrary, the Kentucky Court has declared that "All statutes are presumed to be enacted for the furtherance of a purpose on the part of the legislature and should be construed so as to accomplish that end rather than to render them nugatory." (Emphasis added). Martin v. Tom Moore Distillery Co., 287 Ky. 125, 152 S.W.2d 962 (1939) 967. Thus we must construe KRS 70.540 to mean something.
As we said earlier, the statute, KRS 70.540, will have meaning when the fiscal court, upon the reasonable and proper establishing of a county police force, within its revenue and budget capabilities, properly funds the police force through appropriate budgeting and appropriating. See KRS 67.080 and KRS 67.083(3)(u). Those latter statutes impose upon the fiscal court the affirmative duty of taking such steps, by orders or ordinances, in providing, within the county's financial ability and constitutional limitations [see §§ 157 and 158, Ky. Const.], the necessary police protection.
The sheriffs offices of Kentucky and the state police are spread out too thinly to adequately meet the great problem of police protection at the county level.
A lump sum expense account for county policemen is prohibited by KRS 64.710 .