Request By:
Honorable Elmer Cunnagin, Jr.
Laurel County Attorney
London, Kentucky 40741
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The Laurel County Coroner has been receiving a salary of approximately $217 per month by order of the Laurel County Fiscal Court. Between July 30, 1979 and August 2, 1979, the coroner completed a Coroner's Basic Training Course at Richmond, Kentucky, and was given a total credit of 30 hours in law enforcement and a certificate of completion of the course. At a meeting on December 28, 1979, the fiscal court voted to increase his salary to $325 per month because of the completion of the training course.
Your question is whether it is legal for the fiscal court to authorize a salary increase of $325 per month from the date of his completion of the course, August 2, 1979, up to the date of the approval of the increase, December 28, 1979.
This fiscal court of Laurel County, since the county population is approximately 30,000, is required to provide to the coroner a minimum salary of $175 per month. KRS 64.185(1). However, where the coroner holds a current certificate of continuing education, issued jointly by the Bureau of Training, Department of Justice, and the Medical Examiner Program DHR [initial course of 30 hours], the fiscal court must provide the coroner with the minimum salary of $325 per month. KRS 64.185(1) and (2).
Mr. Robert McKinney, Training Supervisor of the Kentucky Department of Justice, who signed the certificate in question, has just informed us that the certificate is indeed a joint certificate as envisioned in KRS 64.185 and reflects the Laurel County Coroner's successful completion of the initial course of 30 hours of approved classroom training, as mentioned in the above statute. Eastern Kentucky University furnishes the classroom space for this program.
On the basis of these facts and the statute, it is our opinion: (1) that the Laurel Fiscal Court must increase the subject coroner's monthly salary to $325, as minimum compensation; (2) that the pay increase should start at the date of his certification of the course qualification, which was August 2, 1979, and should continue on from that date. The date of the completion of the qualifying course precisely invokes the application of the statutory raise of the minimum amount, since the statute does not provide for retroactive application. KRS 446.080(3).