Request By:
Mr. Jack Wimsett
Nelson County Sheriff
Bardstown, Kentucky 40004
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Nelson County does not furnish automobiles for the deputy sheriffs and does not pay any of their auto expenses. The deputies buy their own automobiles and pay all of their own expenses. The sheriff's office pays the deputies eighteen cents (18 ) per mile out of the sheriff's fees. The deputies make a ticket of their mileage daily and are paid accordingly.
You would like to know whether or not the county judge executive can set a $2,000 maximum per year mileage that you pay the deputies. This is for actual mileage expense and is not salary or compensation.
Under KRS 64.530(3) the fiscal court may in advance fix the maximum amount that the sheriff can spend each year for categories of expenses of his office.
The documentation of such automobile expenses must show the purpose and official necessity of each trip, and the distance traveled on each trip.
Funk v. Milliken, Ky., 317 S.W.2d 499 (1958). The sheriff is paying such official claims out of the fees of his office. See KRS 70.170 and 24A.170.
It is our opinion that reasonable and necessary mileage expenses may be allowed a sheriff as a credit in making his settlement with the county as to any excess fees at the end of each year. This is subject to a proper documentation of the purpose and necessity of each official trip, and the distance actually traveled. Further the sheriff's report should indicate, if true, that there was no double reimbursement for the claimed travel expenses.
A blanket maximum of $2,000 per year for such expenses might be shown to be unreasonable and arbitrary, unless the actual facts support the concept that such money was sufficient for that purpose. In case of a dispute about the amount of funds necessary for this travel expense, only the courts can resolve it.
Under KRS 64.530, the fiscal court, not the county judge executive alone, has the authority to establish reasonable maximum amounts to be expended for the sheriff's deputies' travel expenses.