Request By:
Mr. Earl Fields
Leslie County Clerk
P.O. Box 1050
Hyden, Kentucky 41749
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You request the opinion of this office on the following question:
"Can a county clerk legally retain $6,000.00 in excess fees from the year 1983 to pay an extra deputy to carry out the extra duties created by the new Title Law, and MoTax System, providing the proper fiscal court order is signed by all justices and the county judge executive, and that there is no conflict with the number of deputies and the salary maximum authorized by the court?"
It is clear that the General Assembly has imposed additional duties upon your office in connection with the new motor vehicle registration - tax collection procedures of KRS Chapters 186 and 186A. See also KRS 132.487.
However, we must unfortunately call your attention to the inflexibility of KRS 64.530(3) and (4). That statute, when all sections are read together, means that the number of deputies of local constitutional officers must be set by the fiscal court no later than the first Monday in May in the year of the election of the constitutional officer. There are no provisions in that statute for providing additional deputies during the term of the constitutional officer. See Funk v. Milliken, Ky., 317 S.W.2d 499 (1958). Any relief from that inflexible statute would require a specific statute permitting the appointment of additional deputies during the elected constitutional officer's term. Cf. KRS 71.060(1), permitting the jailer, with the approval of the fiscal court, to appoint additional deputies at any time during the jailer's term of office. Your clerk's association should address this inequity to the sitting General Assembly.
Even if the General Assembly had provided for extra clerk deputies, which it has not, your excess fees cannot be expended for deputy salaries. See Funk v. Milliken, Ky., 317 S.W.2d 499 (1958); Connors v. Jefferson County Fiscal Court, 277 Ky. 23, 125 S.W.2d 206 (1939) 209; and § 106, Kentucky Constitution. It should be noted that KRS 64.530, as now drawn, does not envision part time deputies. It envisions only full time regular deputies.