Request By:
Mr. Robert R. Brown
Logan County Sheriff
P.O. Box 43
Russellville, Kentucky 42276
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You have written that your regular deputies are paid a mileage not to exceed $600 per month for travel necessary in carrying out the statutory functions of your office. Each deputy provides his own car, insurance, gas, etc.
Actually the basic car expense of the deputies in serving papers must be recovered under KRS 64.095 from the appropriate litigant, which statute provides a mileage allowance, based upon actual miles traveled, at the same rate paid state employees (which is now 18 per mile for official use of a privately-owned vehicle). In such cases, the deputy must document the time of the travel, the actual mileage in service of process, the place or places traveled, a description as to whether the person named on the process was served, and a short explanation of why he was not served, if that is the case.
For the patrolling of roads and inspections of dance halls and roadhouses, the state gives the sheriff an expense allowance of $300 per month. Documentation of the expenditures from this allowance is not required of the sheriff. This allowance should be used by the sheriff to reimburse the deputies for their documented mileage in patrolling roads and inspecting dance halls and roadhouses under KRS 70.150, 70.160, and 70.170. If that does not reimburse the deputies in full for such expenses, then they can, by properly documenting such expenses, be paid their actual and necessary expenses out of the fees of your office or the county treasury, where the fiscal court has so provided by appropriate budgeting procedure.
In connection with expenses incurred by your deputies which relate to the statutory functions of your office other than the subject patrolling and inspecting and service of process, such deputies can recover their actual and necessary expenses, by documenting them in the manner suggested earlier herein, from your fees or the county treasury, as mentioned above. See Funk v. Milliken, Ky., 317 S.W.2d 499 (1958).
The second question is whether your deputies are subject to the overtime pay provisions of the statutes?
The answer is "yes". Deputy sheriffs are subject to time and a half for employment in excess of forty hours. See KRS 337.010(1)(e) and (2) and KRS 337.285. The definitional statute, KRS 337.010, does not exclude county employees.