Request By:
Honorable Joseph H. Conley
Nicholas County Attorney
Courthouse
Carlisle, Kentucky 40311
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You have a residual question concerning compensation of county attorneys, beginning in 1978.
You ask whether the fiscal court should fix a salary for the county attorney for his civil work for the county. Section 29 of H.B. 17 [Ch. 17, 1976 Extraordinary Session] amended KRS 69.210, but certain civil duties for the county must still be performed by the county attorney under the amended statute. Under Section 11(4), H.B. 17, office expenses of the county attorney, arising out of his civil duties for the county, will be paid by the fiscal court. Office expenses are not compensation.
Beginning January 1, 1978, the county attorney will get his prosecutorial compensation from the state treasury. He will then no longer be a fee officer. KRS 69.260 [percentages of fines allowed county attorney] will be repealed as of January 1, 1978. See Section 52, H.B. 17.
In the 1976 Extraordinary Session, the legislature emasculated the compensatory provisions of KRS 64.530(2) and (4) and 69.250, which statutes require the fiscal court to set a reasonable salary for the county attorney not later than the first Monday in May of the year of the election. The only reasons for the removal and repeal of these provisions would be: (1) The legislature was thinking that the prosecutorial compensation of the county attorney would be paid out of the state treasury; (2) There was a desire to eliminate the county attorney from the first-Monday-in-May-of-the- election year deadline; (3) There was an intent to bring the county attorney within the provisions of KRS 64.530(1), as amended by H.B. 17. That subsection reads:
"Except as provided in subsections (5) and (6) of this section, the fiscal court of each county shall fix the compensation of every county officer and employe except the officers named in KRS 64.535."
KRS 64.535 relates to the maximum salary of various county officers. However, Section 21 of H.B. 17 [1976 Extraordinary Session] amended KRS 64.535 by eliminating the county attorney from its operative effect.
It is our opinion that KRS 64.530(1), as amended by H.B. 17, and considering the amendment of KRS 64.535, requires the fiscal court to fix the compensation of the county attorney for his civil work for the county. See KRS 64.720, providing that except where the law provides that the compensation shall be paid out of the fees of the office, the fiscal court may authorize payment of compensation out of the county treasury to any county officer specifically provided for by law.