Request By:
Mr. Ruben Watts
Letcher County Judge Executive
Courthouse
Whitesburg, Kentucky 41858
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
On May 10, 1983, the Clerk of Letcher County asked the fiscal court to approve salaries for his deputies for the year 1983. You have declined thus far.
Your question:
"Is it mandatory that the fiscal court set the salaries of all deputies of the county clerk? If so, what is the mandatory date governing the setting of the clerk's deputy salaries? "
KRS 64.530(4) provides that salaries of the deputies of local constitutional officers may be reviewed and adjusted by fiscal court, during the term of the constitutional officer, not later than the first Monday in May of any successive year (year after the election and during term). However, over the years this office has interpreted the first Monday in May as being permissive only, not mandatory. There is no sound reason for construing it to be mandatory. Thus the fiscal court can at this time, at a proper meeting, review and adjust the salaries of the clerk's deputies.
Lanferman v. Vanzile, 150 Ky. 751, 150 S.W. 1008 (1912). If the salaries were payable directly out of the county treasury, then the first Monday in May provision would tie in with the county budget, which proposed budget must be submitted by the county judge executive to the fiscal court by May 24 of each year. KRS 68.240. However, we assume here that the deputy salaries are funded out of the fees of the clerk's office. Even where the deputy salaries are funded in whole or in part out of the county budget, and where there would be sufficient money in the county treasury to fund those salaries, the first Monday in May takes on a permissive character.
In answer to your question, upon request of the county clerk, the fiscal court may review and adjust his deputies' salaries. In refusing or failing to so review and adjust the salaries at this time, the fiscal court cannot act arbitrarily. See § 2,
Kentucky Constitution, and Pritchett v. Marshall, Ky., 375 S.W.2d 253 (1963). In other words, while it is not mandatory that it review and adjust such salaries during the term, the fiscal court would have to advance a sound reason for refusing or failing to so review and adjust.
We have already dealt with the matter of a deadline for reviewing and adjusting. In general in this kind of situation, there is no mandatory deadline.