Request By:
Mr. Edward J. Blau
Circuit Court Clerk
Campbell County Courthouse
Fourth & York Streets
Newport, Kentucky 41071
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
Your problem relates to jailer fees for feeding a misdemeanant under the work release statute, KRS 439.179.
Under that statute, any person sentenced to jail for a misdemeanor, nonpayment of a fine or forfeiture, or contempt of Court, may be granted the privilege of leaving the jail during necessary and reasonable hours for any of the enumerated purposes listed in the statute. One of the purposes authorized for work release is working at employment.
KRS 439.179(4) reads:
"Every prisoner gainfully employed is liable for the cost of his board in the jail, at the amount established by law. If he defaults his privilege under this section is automatically forfeited. All moneys shall be collected by the district court and paid to the state treasury. The fiscal court may, by ordinance, provide that the county furnish or pay for the transportation of prisoners employed under this section to and from the place of employment."
Under the explicit language of subsection (4), every prisoner, under the work release program, gainfully employed is liable for the cost of his board in the jail, at the amount established by law. If he defaults in such payment for board, his work release privilege shall be automatically forfeited.
The dieting fee per day is $6.75, pursuant to KRS 64.150. KRS 439.179(10) provides in part that nothing in this statute shall be construed to affect KRS 64.150, which provides for the payment of fees to the jailer. This simply means that the dieting fee of $6.75 per day under KRS 64.150 is in no way affected or amended by KRS 439.179. In other words, the board to be paid by the work release prisoner is in terms of the $6.75 per day of KRS 64.150. Normally, the state pays the dieting fee where the prisoner is charged with or convicted of violating a state statute.
It is our opinion that the statutes contemplate that the dieting fee be paid only once. So long as the prisoner is working, or is gainfully employed, he must pay the dieting fee covering his board. He must turn it over to the District Court for payment into the state treasury. The District Court has the authority, under KRS 439.179(4) and (5), to direct that when the dieting money is taken out of the prisoner's wages, the jailer must deposit with the Circuit-District Court Clerk a written statement documenting the transaction in two respects: (1) the jailer must identify the prisoner involved and for what period of time the dieting fee is being paid out of the prisoner's wages; and (2) the jailer must state to the Court that the state has already paid the jailer the dieting fee covering the identical period mentioned in item (1), if that is true. In this way, a practical method for applying the statute can be established.
At this point, the Court Clerk can, under the direction of the District Court, pay the dieting money into the state treasury as a reimbursement for the state, and the state must account for it as a reimbursement to the state for state money previously paid out pursuant to KRS 64.150.
Where the state has already paid the dieting fee for a particular period, there is no authority for the state's taking the money turned in for the prisoner and paying the jailer (in those counties of less than 75,000 population) the dieting fee money. As we said above, that would be a duplication of payment of the dieting fee and is not authorized by KRS 439.179. Also such dieting money paid in to the state for the prisoner cannot be credited, as relates to jailers in counties of 75,000 population or more or in urban county governments, to their official revenue account pursuant to KRS 64.345(3), since to do so would amount to a duplication of receipt of dieting fees.
You mention that on February 17, 1981, the Fayette District Court Judges entered an order directing that any boarding (dieting) fee money paid by a prisoner under KRS 439.179(5) (as relates to the Court's disbursing the prisoner's wages for the board of the prisoner) shall be paid by the jailer to the state treasurer to the account of the jailer for use by the jailer, without deduction under KRS 64.150. Since that would mean a duplication of payment of dieting fee where the state has previously paid the fee, we must respectfully disagree with that view.
Thus at your request, and on behalf of the District Court of Campbell County, and upon the request of Mr. Charles Wickliffe, General Counsel for the State Finance Department, we are issuing this opinion of clarification, pursuant to KRS 15.020 and 15.025.