Request By:
Mr. Frederick G. Neikirk
Pulaski County Attorney
104 W. Columbia Street
Somerset, Kentucky 42501
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your letter concerns vacation time for county road employees. It reads:
"Pulaski County has a Policy and Procedures Manual governing vacation time for county road employees. The Manual allows county road employees to accumulate ten (10) vacation days per year, which amounts to less than one (1) day per month, but to accumulate that partial day the employee has to work fourteen (14) days during a particular month.
"The road employees were working under the misconception that they received one vacation day per month, even if laid off, for twelve (12) days a year. Approximately one year ago this was brought to the attention of the Fiscal Court and the County Judge Executive, and they failed to properly inform the county road employees of the County's correct vacation policy. Several road employees took their twelve days vacation time, with the approval of the county road foreman, and then had their paychecks cut when it was discovered they were only allowed ten days, or less, vacation time.
"Can the Fiscal Court and the County Judge Executive pay the twelve vacation days per year, contrary to the adopted Policy and Procedures Manual, if they so desire?
"Should the employees be penalized for a mistake on the part of the Fiscal Court and the County Judge Executive?"
We assume that the fiscal court specifically adopted the written Policy and Procedures Manual in question by an appropriate resolution or order of motion, which resolution or motion is of record. See KRS 67.075(1) and 67.076(1). We also assume that the Policy and Procedures Manual was adopted as a part of the Administrative Code of the County. See KRS 67.080(2)(c).
Under the above assumptions, it is our opinion that the written Policy and Procedures Manual provision governs. The Manual allows county road employees to accumulate ten (10) vacation days per year. Here, until such order is amended to reflect some different number of vacation days, the ten (10) day provision must be observed. It is good to remember that a fiscal court is a body of record, not a body dispensing oral rules.