Request By:
Mr. William F. Ivers, Jr.
Henry County Attorney
P.O. Box 108
New Castle, Kentucky 40050
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your problem was stated in your letter as follows:
I have been requested by the Henry Fiscal Court to request an opinion on the legality of the fiscal court agreeing for the jailer and the jailer's family to eat meals from the food purchased by the county for the feeding of prisoner's in exchange for the jailer furnishing kitchen equipment for the preparation of food and provision of this equipment at no cost to the county.
The county, through the fiscal court, has the responsibility for providing and maintaining a jail, unless the fiscal court decides to contract with another county for the incarceration and care of its prisoners. KRS 441.006. This is a capital cost.
The providing of a jail includes the proper furnishings or equipment for the care and feeding of prisoners. Historically, the jailer was required to feed the prisoners. He still has that immediate responsibility. However, the funds for the food and necessary funds for food preparation personnel must come out of the jail budget of the county budget. KRS 441.008(1). Here we are speaking of operational costs, as contrasted with capital costs. The operational costs are provided for by expenditure of the "jail fund" money in the county budget by the jailer and county treasurer, pursuant to KRS 441.008(2).
The county must furnish necessary kitchen equipment for the jail, payable out of properly budgeted funds (not the jail budget part of county budget) .
The jailer now receives a monthly salary from the county jail operating budget. KRS 441.009. Nothing involving jail operations comes out of his salary. It is pure salary, or compensation. If he were to get his personal and family food (prepared in the jail) free, it would be in contravention of the compensation statute, which only envisions a straight salary.
The eating of jail food by the jailer and his family can be distinguished from the question as to whether or not the rental value of the jail, as living quarters for the jailer and his family, is a part of the jailer's compensation. In OAG 80-130, copy enclosed, we concluded that the jail residential quarters were not a valid part of the jailer's compensation, since the legislative policy of having the jailer or deputy to reside in the jail where possible permits the jailer or deputy to conduct a close surveillance of the jail operation, and thus tends to minimize various jail problems relating to security and other related matters. The 1982 amendment to KRS 71.020 makes the jailer's or deputy's residing in the jail, where possible, permissive only.
CONCLUSION
We are of the opinion that the fiscal court must provide the jail with proper furnishings and equipment necessary for preparation of food for jail prisoners.
This is primarily a direct capital and equipment responsibility of the county, through the Fiscal Court. See KRS 441.006(2)(a). In addition, the funds for the food and necessary funds for food preparation personnel must come out of the jail budget of the county budget. KRS 441.008(1); and 501 KAR 3:010.
The jailer must be personally responsible for purchasing, out of his personal funds, the food requirements for him and his family.
As concerns the jailer living in the county jail, KRS 71.020 provides in part that "where the jail admits the residence of the same therein he (the jailer) or one (1) of his deputies may reside in the jail" . (Emphasis added). This amounts to saying that where practical, the jailer, or one of his deputies, may live in the jail. The legislative policy merely permits the jailer or a deputy to live in the jail and thus conduct a close surveillance of the jail operation. This tends to minimize various jail problems relating to security and related matters. However, at most, the jailer's or deputy's living in the jail is permissive only. Thus the jailer and family are not required to live in or near the jail. However, in considering the jailer's custodial responsibility for the jail and its prisoners at all times, pursuant to KRS 71.020, it is our opinion that implicit in this custodial responsibility is the jailer's responsibility for maintaining a twenty-four hour alert or "awake" supervision of the jail and its inmates. Central in this concept of surveillance is the necessity for keeping the prisoners within prison walls until properly released and the duty the jailer owes to the prisoners to keep them safe and to protect them from unnecessary harm.
Hall v. Midwest Bottled Gas Distributors, Inc., Ky., 532 S.W.2d 449 (1976). Twenty-four hour surveillance of the jail goes a long way toward meeting the two important responsibilities of the jailer, as just outlined. In addition, KRS 441.011 calls for jail standards regulations dealing with, inter alia, the health and safety conditions of prisoners, fire safety, jail operations, custody, care and treatment of prisoners, and medical care. See 501 KAR 3:010, 3:020, 3:030, 3:040, and 3:060. 501 KAR 3:040, Section 1, provides that "Each jail shall provide twenty-four (24) hour awake supervision for all inmates" . (Emphasis added). See the details of security control in 501 KAR 3:060.
Public officials, such as jailers and members of fiscal court, can only act within the limits fixed by law.