Request By:
Mr. Wayne T. Rutherford
Pike County Judge/Executive
Courthouse - Main Street
Pikeville, Kentucky 41501
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You ask whether, beginning in January, 1978, the fiscal court can be reimbursed for the rent, maintenance and upkeep of the county jail.
We can find no constitutional or statutory section establishing the county jail as a part of the state judicial system. Cf. KRS Chapter 441. KRS 64.150(1) provides that county jailers shall be paid out of the county treasury, except as provided in subsection (2), certain enumerated fees for his services for keeping and dieting prisoners and attending district or circuit court. Subsection (2) provides the unit of government whose law, statute or ordinance a prisoner is charged with or convicted of violating shall be responsible for paying to the county jailer the fees provided in subsection (1) of KRS 64.150. If the Supreme Court of Kentucky rules finally in the Home Rule case that a fiscal court is not a legislative body in any respect, this would rule out the enacting of criminal ordinances. Thus the state would bear most the payment of the jailer's fees.
However, we can find no legislation providing that the state must pay to the county a rental for the county jail or must pay for maintenance and related costs of the county jail.
It is our opinion that the fiscal court, in counties of less than 75,000 population, must provide for a county jail [KRS 67.080(4)] and its proper upkeep [KRS 67.130].