Request By:
Mr. Sam W. Moore II
Green County Attorney
P.O. Box 146
131 North Public Square
Greensburg, Kentucky 42743
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
As County Attorney for Green County, you ask about the status of county employees when a new fiscal court takes office.
Your first fiscal court meeting was January 14, 1982. Thus the county judge executive and other members of fiscal court took no action on county employees until that date. On January 14, 1982, the fiscal court passed a resolution approving and ratifying all county employees and their salaries as it existed on January 14, 1982.
It was your opinion, concurred in by the county judge executive, that these employees would continue until discharged by action of the county judge executive, with the consent of the fiscal court. The other members of fiscal court, however, believe that the resolution of January 14, 1982, approved and ratified the old employees on a temporary basis, and that re-approval would be necessary in the near future.
Question No. 1: Was the blanket approval sufficient?
The resolution reads as follows:
That whereas, the first meeting of the 1982-1986 Geen County Fiscal Court was not held until January 14, 1982, and new employees of Green County and their salaries could not be approved until such time, and,
Whereas, the efficient operation of the county and its business required the holding over of certain employees and their salaries from the 1978-1982 fiscal court until replacements could be hired and salaries fixed or the same employees and their salaries re-approved,
Now therefore be it resolved that all employees and their salaries that existed on December 31, 1981, be and the same are hereby approved and ratified as employees and salaries of the 1982-1986 fiscal court from January 4, 1982, until a certain and definite employee or salary is fixed, dismissed or changed by said new court.
When the entire provisions are read together, it is apparent that the fiscal court's intention was to approve of their employment only until the county judge executive, with the consent of fiscal court, has an opportunity to determine just what employees will go and those who will stay, pursuant to the action authority given the county judge executive in KRS 67.710(7), with the consent of fiscal court. The word "re-approved" is the guiding light here.
Thus in the near future the county judge executive, subject to the consent of the fiscal court, should take the appropriate action of removal or appointment for all county positions.
The fiscal court had the authority to ratify the personnel action on January 14, 1982, which action could have legally been taken on January 4, 1982. Estill County v. Wallace, 219 Ky. 174, 292 S.W. 816 (1927). However, such ratification, in order to permanently stand, must be by an unequivocal order of fiscal court. That was not done. Duff v. Knott County, 238 Ky. 71, 36 S.W.2d 870 (1931).
Question No. 2 is whether the resolution involved only the temporary approval of fiscal court. The answer is that the approval is temporary, as outlined above.