Request By:
Mr. Tipton Baker
Harlan County Judge/Executive
P.O. Box 944
Harlan, Kentucky 40831
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
In connection with the county's procurement and administrative codes, the magistrates would like to continue to have responsibility for road programs in their respective districts.
Specifically you raise this question:
"Would I be able to appoint them not as magistrates, but as road commissioners over their respective districts?"
"In essence they would be county employees in their function as road commissioners not as a legislator elected by the people of their district."
The answer is "no". There is no statute authorizing them to assume such executive or employee roles. KRS 67.080(3) provides in essence that members of fiscal court shall not exercise executive authority except as specifically assigned by statute. The county judge/executive is responsible for the administration of the county road program. KRS 67.722. The county road engineer or supervisor is under him. In addition, the fiscal court as a body is required to establish the policies and expenditures relating to county roads; and the road program cannot be fragmented into a project in each magisterial district. KRS 67.080, 67.083. Further, in
Thompson v. Bracken County, Ky., 294 S.W.2d 943 (1956), the court stressed that road funds cannot be used as individual magistrates might determine in their separate districts. To the contrary, the fiscal court as a body must determine the proper use of road money for the county as a whole for the benefit and interests of the entire county.
Moreover, KRS 61.210 and 61.220 expressly prohibit justices of the peace on fiscal courts from being interested in work on county roads and bridges or having a claim against the county [other than their salaries as justices of the peace].