Request By:
Mr. Frank J. Smith
State Representative
49th District
Box 222 Star Route
Shepherdsville, Kentucky 40165
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You point out in your letter that, effective January 1, 1985, KRS 45.451 - 45.458 requires a state purchasing agency to pay bills for goods or services received from a vendor within thirty (30) working days of receipt of the vendor's invoice.
Your question is whether that legislative policy would apply to the Corrections Cabinet's payments to counties for the cost of jailing convicted felons awaiting transfer to the state prison system.
Where a circuit court judgment imposes a sentence of death or confinement in the penitentiary, the sheriff is required by KRS 431.215 to deliver such defendant to the penitentiary. Unfortunately, such convicted prisoners are being detained in county jails for various periods of time awaiting penitentiary space. Thus such counties must be reimbursed by the state to pay the counties' cost of maintaining such prisoners while they are detained in county jails. Under KRS 431.215(2), the county in which such convicted prisoner is incarcerated shall receive from the state treasury a fee of ten dollars ($10) per day beginning on the fifth day following the day on which judgment against the felon was rendered and ending the day that the defendant is delivered to the penitentiary. Such fee shall be paid to the county treasurer for use for the incarceration of prisoners as provided in KRS 441.025. The latter statute deals with the county's responsibility for incarceration of prisoners.
Under KRS 45.452, a "purshchasing agency" is any state organizational unit or administrative body as defined in KRS 12.010 that actually receives goods or services from a vendor. An "organizational unit", as defined in KRS 12.010, includes program cabinets. The program cabinets listed in KRS 12.020 include the Corrections Cabinet.
It is our opinion, under the literal wording of the above statutes, that the thirty (30) day payment rule established in KRS 45.453 applies to the Corrections Cabinet's payment to the counties of the reimbursement fees occasioned by the detention of convicted felons in county jails, pursuant to KRS 431.215. The invoices submitted by such affected counties must be consistent with KRS 431.215(2).
Here we believe that the clarity and literalism of the above controlling statutes require an interpretation amounting to their literal meaning. Bailey v. Reeves, Ky., 662 S.W.2d 832 (1984) 834.