Request By:
Ms. Bettie Olds
Madison County Jailer
North Second Street
Richmond, Kentucky 40475
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You request an opinion of this office on the following question:
"As jailer of Madison County may I receive the maximum salary of $23,184.00 from the fees of my office without the approval of the Fiscal Court?"
Your compensation as jailer is tied to the rubber dollar concept. KRS 64.527 is an implementation of the rubber dollar adjustment formula established in
Commonwealth v. Hesch, Ky., 395 S.W.2d 362 (1965).
There is apparently a misunderstanding in some quarters as to the effect of KRS 64.527 as an implementing statute. In order to get this problem into perspective, a reading of a portion of the statute is essential:
"The executive department for finance and administration shall notify the appropriate governing bodies charged by law to fix the compensation of the above elected officials of the annual rate of compensation to which the elected officials are entitled pursuant to the increase or decrease in the consumer price index. Upon notification from the executive department for finance and administration, the appropriate governing body may set the annual compensation of the above elected officials at a rate no greater than that stipulated by the executive department for finance and administration."
The Department of Finance has already notified the fiscal courts of Kentucky as to the maximum rubber dollar amount of compensation which may be received by the constitutional officers listed in KRS 64.527, including the county jailers. That maximum compensation for the calendar year of 1980 is $23,184.00.
As the Secretary of Finance stated in his memorandum of February 11, 1980, relating to the maximum compensation figure, such maximum compensation possible does not reflect a mandated salary. That is correct in terms of a salary payable out of the county treasury as provided by fiscal court. The fiscal court, under KRS 67.080, 67.083 [control of fiscal affairs of county] and KRS 64.530 [salary fixing statute], has control over the specific amount of salaries to be paid directly out of the county treasury, except where some statute prescribes a minimum salary [for example, see KRS 67.705, providing a minimum salary for county judge/executives].
Since there is no minimum salary payable to jailers out of the county treasury, the amount of any salary paid to jailers out of the county treasury is in the sound discretion of the fiscal court.
But as to fee officers, such as the county jailer, and where the jailer receives sufficient fees to make the maximum rubber dollar amount for 1980, for example, the jailer is entitled to such maximum compensation. In such case the fiscal court can do nothing to prevent the fee officer's getting the maximum rubber dollar compensation where the jailer's fees are sufficient to give him or her, as the case may be, the maximum possible under the rubber dollar formula. As relates to the fee officer, under KRS 64.527, the annual rubber dollar adjustment to the new maximum each year automatically, by virtue of that statute, entitles the fee officer to the maximum or anything less, depending upon the amount of the fees earned that year.
The fiscal courts have a discretion only in salary fixing of such officials in connection with a salary paid out of the county treasury, except for statutory minimums. That is what is meant by referring in KRS 64.527 to "bodies charged by law to fix the compensation" etc.
In short, if you earn the maximum rubber dollar amount in fees for 1980, you are entitled to that maximum, without the approval of the fiscal court.