Request By:
Honorable Willie Hendrickson
Bell County Judge
and
Honorable Paris Swinford
Bell County Attorney
Pineville, Kentucky 40977
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The jailer of Bell County has indicated his fees for the calendar year of 1975 were not adequate to pay his salary. The fiscal court did not authorize any salary for him for the period in question. The jailer thus elected to pay himself from his fees for that year. We assume that your stating that there was a "deficit" in the jailer's compensation for 1975 merely means that, in taking his compensation through the fees of his office, he fell short of the maximum allowed by KRS 64.527 and 64.535, which, for 1975, was $14,300 adjusted to the current Consumer Price Index formula for 1975.
You ask if the fiscal court can make up such deficit. The answer is "no".
He could have made the limit in 1975 if his fees had been sufficient. However, the fiscal court did not authorize a salary for that year. Of course the fiscal court is not required to provide a salary. It is permissive only.