Request By:
Mr. Frank H. McCartney
Fleming County Attorney
Courthouse
Flemingsburg, Kentucky 41041
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The question has arisen as to whether or not the county jail employees, who are on an hourly basis, have to be paid every two weeks. KRS 337.020 indicates to you that such employees would have to be paid at least twice per month. You also find that KRS Chapters 440 and 441 require jail employees be paid when all other county employees are paid. All other county employees in the courthouse are paid salaries on a monthly basis, you have written.
Thus question no. 1 reads:
"Is the fiscal court required to pay hourly people every two weeks? "
We concluded in OAG 82-625 that under KRS 337.010 (1)(d), the jailer is an "employer" for purposes of the payment of minimum wages and time and a half for work in excess of a forty (40) hour week. See KRS 337.275 and 337.285. Thus all county jail deputies and other jail employees are subject to KRS Chapter 337 (except the jailer's spouse - see KRS 337.010(2)(vi)).
KRS 337.020 reads:
"Every employer doing business in this state shall, as often as semimonthly, pay to each of its employes all wages or salary earned to a day not more than eighteen (18) days prior to the date of that payment. Any employe who is absent at the time fixed for payment, or who, for any other reason, is not paid at that time, shall be paid thereafter at any time upon six (6) days' demand. No employer subject to this section shall, by any means, secure exemption from it. Every such employe shall have a right of action against any such employer for the full amount of his wages due on each regular pay day. The provisions of this section do not apply to those individuals defined in KRS 337.010(2)(a)(ii)."
KRS 337.020 carries an exception. That exception consists of any individual employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, supervisory or professional capacity, or in the capacity of outside salesman, or as an outside collector as such terms are defined by administrative regulations of the commissioner. See KRS 337.010(2)(a)(ii). Also see KRS 441.005(5), defining jail personnel.
It is our opinion that KRS 337.020 applies to the payment of the jail employees, including the jailer deputies, and that the exception listed in KRS 337.020 does not apply to such county jail employees. We do not believe that jail deputies are executives and supervisors in the administrative sense intended by KRS 337.010(2)(a)(ii). Thus, as you have reasoned, the jailer must pay the county jail employees as often as semimonthly all salary earned to a day not more than eighteen (18) days prior to the date of that payment. See KRS 441.008(2), which provides that the county treasurer shall disburse jail operating funds at the direction of the jailer, etc. 501 KRS 3:030, Section 5(1), provides that jail employees shall be paid on the same dates as county employees. We have indicated above that KRS 337.020 is controlling; and thus the jail employees must be paid as often as semimonthly.
Your second question concerns the payment of jail employees who are not hourly. We have answered this question above, since all the jail employees are on an hourly basis under KRS Chapter 337. And all such employees must be paid semimonthly under the express and literal language of KRS 337.020. See Department of Revenue v. Greyhound Corp., Ky., 321 S.W.2d 60 (1959).