Request By:
Mr. David H. Bland
Kentucky Jailers Association
McCowans Ferry Road
Versailles, Kentucky 40383
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Mr. Charles Ladd has for some time operated a restaurant in Princeton, Kentucky. He became jailer of Caldwell County in 1981. Because the county did not and still does not provide the jail a cook or cooking equipment and utensils, Mr. Ladd decided to serve the prisoners from his restaurant and bill the jail account for each meal served. To date this has been the procedure and all billings have been property accounted.
Question No. 1:
Since the county has chosen not to provide staff or equipment for prisoner food preparation, is Mr. Ladd in a conflict of interest situation?
The jailer has the responsibility to furnish prisoners with proper food under the terms of KRS 71.040. Further, the fiscal court, so long as there is a jail in the county under H.B. 440 (1982 regular session), has the implied duty of equipping the county jail with the basic equipment necessary in the preparation and storage of food for prisoners fed therein. Thus a stove, refrigerator, cooking and kitchenware are items necessary for that role. See
Breathitt County v. Cockrell, 250 Ky. 743, 63 S.W.2d 920 (1933) 922. Under H.B. 440 (1982), the jailer no longer (H.B. 440, Sect. 50, repealed KRS 64.150, jailer's fees) is a fee officer. He must be paid a salary. The Caldwell County Attorney and County Judge Executive have informed this office that the ancient practice in that county is that the jailer furnishes his own cook stove for the jail and his wife is the cook.
The recent case of
Buchignani v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, Ky., App., S.W.2d (April 30, 1982), reiterated the judicial principle that a jailer is prohibited from operating any business in connection with the jail for profit. See OAG 80-525, copy enclosed, Miller v. Porter, 47 Ky. (B. Monroe, Vol. 8, 1847-8) 282, and Thompson v. Probert, 65 Ky. (Bush Vol. 2) 144 (1867).
It is our view that the fiscal court and the jailer can get together and establish a "no profit" figure for the food prepared in the restaurant, such that, in essence, the situation would be essentially equivalent to the jailer's preparing the food in the jail at no profit.
Your second question relates to the fiscal court's authorizing the purchase of prisoner meals from the jailer's restaurant. You ask whether that would violate any constitutional prohibition against a public official realizing a profit from his public office? In the above case of Buchignani, the Court of Appeals held that the jailer's operating a commissary on public property for a profit violated § 173 of the Kentucky Constitution. However, where the fiscal court and the jailer work out an established "no profit" figure on the food so purchased, we see no problem.