Request By:
Miss Linda J. Hunt
Executive Secretary-Treasurer
Kentucky State Coroners
Association
P.O. Box 374
Cave City, Kentucky 42127
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; John Stephen Kirby, Assistant Attorney General
This letter is in response to your letter of October 12, 1981, raising certain questions concerning Coroners and the County Employees Retirement System created in KRS Chapter 78. Your questions are as follows:
"Is each Fiscal Court required to place funds in the Ky. Retirement System for the benefit of the county coroner? If so, is there a minimum salary requirement before the coroner would be eligible for participation in the retirement program? If the individual coroner does not desire to participate in the program, is it mandatory that he does so?
Is the Fiscal Court required to provide any type of insurance on the coroner, i.e., health, life, workman's compensation or liability insurance?"
The County Employees Retirement System was created for employees of the various county and school boards as defined in KRS 78.510(2) and (3). KRS 78.510. Employe is defined in KRS 78.510(6) as follows:
"(6) 'Employe' means every regular full-time appointed or elective officer or employe of a participating county. The term shall not, however, include persons engaged as independent contractors, seasonal, emergency, temporary and part-time workers. In case of any doubt, the board shall determine if a person is an employe within the meaning of KRS 78.520 to 78.852; . . ."
A coroner who operates his office on an on-call or part-time basis may be exempted from coverage under the system by the definition of part-time position as found in KRS 78.510(21)(d):
"KRS 78.510(21)(d) Part-time positions which are positions which may be permanent in duration, but which require less than an annual or fiscal year average of one hundred (100) hours of work per month in the performance of duty, except in case of school bus drivers for school boards, in which event the school term average shall be eighty (80) hours of work per month in the performance of duty; . . ."
Therefore, in order to be a full-time employe and receive benefits under the County Employees Retirement System, the individual Coroner must show that his duties required, each annual or fiscal year, one hundred (100) or more hours per month on the average. There is no minimum salary requirement for coverage by the system.
If the individual Coroner meets the requirement of full-time employe the County must contribute certain amounts, specified by statute, to the retirement system; provided, that the County is a participating member of the system as set out in KRS 78.530. (See KRS 78.625 for the amounts of contribution required of the County.) It is suggested that each coroner inquire of his county government if it is a participating member of the system. Once a county is a participating member of the system contributions to the system from full-time employees is mandatory. KRS 78.610(1). The only exception to the above is the employe who is employed at the time the county first becomes a participating member of the system, such employe may make an election as to whether he wishes to belong to the system or not. KRS 78.550 and Opinion of the Attorney General 61-833.
Your final question is whether the fiscal court must provide various types of insurance for the Coroner. Insurance for liabilities "arising out of an act or omission committed in the scope and course of performing legal duties" may be purchased by county governments for officials and employees; but, such expense is entirely in the discretion of the county government. KRS 65.150(1). There is no provision requiring county governments to provide health or life insurance for Coroners. As for Workman's Compensation, the Opinion of the Attorney General 74-610, concluded that elected county officials were mandatorily covered by the Workman's Compensation law unless the official elected to exclude himself (not the county) from such coverage. Counties are included in the definition of employer contained within the Workman's Compensation Statutes. KRS 324.630(2).