Request By:
Mr. C. W. Williams
Laurel County Clerk
Courthouse
London, Kentucky 40741
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Because of the ever increasing responsibilities of the county clerk's office, you have written that your deputy clerks have been required to work much overtime, exceeding the regular working hours set by law. You point out that the work of your office must be kept up to date in order to meet the requirements of state law.
You raise the question of working and paying your deputies for overtime hours.
All county offices are on a five (5) day workweek basis under KRS 61.160.
The fiscal court, in establishing the number of deputies and their salaries and salary adjustments under KRS 64.530, must take into consideration the amount of compensation and number of deputies necessary to enable you to discharge properly the statutory duties of your office.
You, as county clerk, have the authority to authorize your deputies to work in excess of a forty-hour workweek, where it is reasonably necessary to carry out your statutory duties. See
Greenup County v. Millis, Ky., 303 S.W.2d 898 (1957); and Ewing v. Hays, 257 ky. 259, 77 S.W.2d 946 (1935).
KRS 337.285 mandates the payment of overtime (time and a half) where the deputy works longer than a forty-hour week. See KRS 337.010.
The overtime payment must come from the same source that the regular salary comes from. In your case, such payment comes from the fees of your office, or from the county treasury, or from a combination of both sources.