Request By:
Mr. Jimmy Firquin
Adair County Judge Executive
500 Public Square
Columbia, Kentucky 42728
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your inquiry relates to H.B. 378, 1982 regular session, involving county officials.
Your question is whether you, as county judge executive, are entitled to get retroactive pay in order to be equal with the highest paid office holder in the courthouse who is making the maximum of $28,387.00 for 1982. Your present salary is $15,635.00.
Section 1(3) amends KRS 67.705 and provides in part that, except in urban county governments, "the minimum annual compensation" paid to the county judge executive shall be the greater of a sum not less than 60% of the maximum compensation certified under KRS 64.527 (the maximum payable to a local constitutional officer in 1982 is $28,387.00), or not less than the "annual compensation" of the sheriff, or county clerk, or jailer in the county, except that no fiscal court shall be required under provisions of this section to approve an amount for the compensation of any one official which would exceed six percent (6%) of the county's total annual general fund receipts, including federal revenue sharing monies. (Emphasis added).
Note that under Section 1 of H.B. 378, the county judge executive's compensation is projected on an annual compensation basis. While the bill will become effective on July 15, 1982 (see § 55, Kentucky Constitution), under the express language "annual compensation" used above in the bill, it is our opinion that the bill will apply retroactively back to January 1, 1982, as relates to this calendar year. Thus if the sheriff, or county clerk, or jailer makes $28,387.00 in annual compensation for 1982, you will be entitled to $28,387.00 for 1982, since the bill provides that you will receive no less than that received by the sheriff, or county clerk, or jailer of your county. A statute will not be given a retroactive effect unless an intent to do so is clearly expressed therein.
Roberts v. Hickman County Fiscal Court, Ky., 481 S.W.2d 279 (1972). Here that intent to make it retroactive is clearly made out since your compensation is on an "annual" calendar year basis. Your getting the greater of 60% of maximum rubber dollar or at least what the sheriff, county clerk, or jailer gets each year, is subject only to the proviso that your salary would not exceed six percent (6%) of the county's total annual general fund receipts.
Thus the fiscal court will have to budget sufficiently to provide your salary, and any concomitant salary make up involved in the period prior to July 15, 1982, for the 1982 calendar year so as to meet the minimum salary provisions of KRS 67.705, as amended. Although the total legal salary paid to the sheriff, county clerk, or jailer, will not be definitely determined until the end of the calendar year of 1982, the county budget must be so devised as to assure you finally as to your minimum guaranteed salary for calendar year 1982.