Request By:
Mr. J. Scott Preston
Johnson County Attorney
Courthouse Annex
Paintsville, Kentucky 41240
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your county commissioners serving on fiscal court have a question concerning their compensation. One commissioner wants to work full time, the other two do not. Your question is whether or not commissioners of the same fiscal court may receive different salaries based upon their actual work load?
Pursuant to KRS 64.527, as an implementation of the rubber dollar concept (Commonwealth v. Hesch, Ky., 395 S.W.2d 362 (1965)), the maximum salary payable to county commissioners in 1982 is $28,387.00.
Public offices in counties are on a five (5) day work week basis. KRS 61.160.
While county commissioners have no executive duties when they are not in session with fiscal court, it is legitimate for them to study county problems and even travel over the county to observe county iproblems and county to observe county problems and county employees at work in order to get county problems into a better perspective, looking toward possible action in fiscal court meetings. However, the necessity for that kind of out-of-session work would vary with the various counties, depending upon such factors as county population, number of county government problems, the nature of specific problems, etc.
The key statutes relating to the compensation of your and 64.527.
Section 59, Items eighteen (18) and twenty-nine (29), Kentucky Constitution, requires that legislation concerning an officer's compensation be uniform. Thus local or special legislation in that area is prohibited. The aim and purpose of § 59 of the Constitution was described in Department of Finance v. Dishman, 298 Ky. 545, 183 S.W.2d 540 (1944) 543, as being designed to "bar favoritism and discrimination, and to ensure equality under law."
In conformity with § 59, Constitution, the above compensation statutes envision equal pay for all magistrates or commissioners on a particular fiscal court. The county judge executive is a valid exception to the general rule, since he has a full time function pursuant to KRS 67.710. See the special provisions for the county judge executive at KRS 67.705.
It is our opinion that the commissioners on your fiscal court must be paid the same compensation, regardless of what the legal sum is. In view of the fact that § § 3 and 171 demand that an officer or employee of government receive compensation actually earned by rendering appropriate statutory services, this means that each commissioner is required to have approximately the same work load. See OAG 77-774 concerning salary equity in terms of work load and § § 3 and 171, Constitution.