Request By:
Mr. Bremer Ehrler
County Court Clerk
Courthouse
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
In the past, the county clerk's office in Jefferson and Fayette Counties have presented their budget no later than January 15th of each year to circuit court and county court and signed by the judges or a majority thereof of those courts under KRS 64.345.
KRS 64.345(5), as amended in 1976 (Ex. Sess.), Ch. 14, § 33) reads:
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"(5) In counties containing a city of the first class and in counties having an urban-county form of government, the number of deputies and assistants allowed to each officer and the compensation allowed to each deputy and assistant shall be fixed at reasonable amounts upon motion of each officer by an order entered upon the order book of the county court and signed by the judge thereof. In all other counties with a population of 75,000 or more, the number of deputies and assistants allowed to each officer and the compensation allowed to each deputy and assistant shall be fixed at reasonable amounts upon motion of each officer by the fiscal court by an order entered upon the fiscal court order book no later than January 15 of each year. A certified copy of the orders, and of any subsequent changes made therein, shall, as soon as entered, be forwarded to the executive department for finance and administration."
As of January 2, 1978, there will be no more "county court" or county court order book. Section 109, Kentucky Constitution. Further, although Section 6 of S.B. 18, 1976 (Ex. Sess., Ch. 20) provides that wherever the words "county judge" appear in previously existing statutes, the language shall be changed by the Revisor of Statutes to read "county judge/ executive", that section has no application here since it is obvious from the 1976 (Ex. Sess.) amendment of KRS 64.345(5) and the prior legislative history of the statute that only a "judicial court" is intended.
Prior to the 1976 amendment of KRS 64.345(5), the subsection provided that in Jefferson and Fayette Counties the number of deputies and their compensation must be fixed "upon motion of each officer by an order entered upon the order book of the circuit court and county court and signed by the judges or a majority thereof of those courts." (Emphasis added).
We think it is irrelevant, concerning legislative intent, as to whether this fixing of the number and compensation of county officer deputies is or is not a judicial function. The important feature here is whether or not the legislature has a judicial "court" in mind as the fixing body. When one considers that the Extraordinary Session of 1976 was anticipating the establishing of the judicial changes and any related changes necessary, we are of the opinion that the legislature in KRS 64.345(5) [Ex. Sess.] in inadvertently using the term "county court" really meant the "district court." The court in
Button v. Hikes, 296 Ky. 163, 176 S.W.2d 112 (1943) 117, wrote that "It is presumed that the legislature is acquainted with the law; that it has knowledge of the state of it upon subjects upon which it legislates; that it is informed of previous legislation, and the construction it has received." The legislature in 1976 knew that in Jefferson County a court panel composed of the circuit judges and the county court, under KRS 64.345, determined by a court order the number and compensation of certain county officer deputies. Since in 1978 there will be no "county court", and since the deletion of the term "circuit court and" as it had appeared in KRS 64.345(5) was directed in the 1976 amendment (Ex. Sess.), it is our opinion that the legislature had in mind only the county district court in the setting of the number of deputies and their compensation. The 1976 (Ex. Sess.) amendment deletes the plurality of judges and deletes the language "or a majority of those courts."
Thus KRS 64.345(5), as amended, reads". . . upon the order book of the county court and signed by the judge thereof." (Emphasis added). It is clear that only one judge of district court was intended. The one judge would have to be the chief judge of the county district court. See § 113, Kentucky Constitution. It does not make sense that twenty-three district judges in Jefferson County would be performing the subject statutory function.
The court has held that no violence is done to a statute, as relates to statutory construction, by supplying, deleting, or changing words or their arrangement in clarification of the statute, and in order to carry into effect the purpose of the statute.
Asher v. Stacy, 299 Ky. 476, 185 S.W.2d 958 (1945) 959.
For the foregoing reasons, and considering the applicable authorities as indicated, it is our opinion that in Jefferson and Fayette Counties, under KRS 64.345(5), the number of deputies of certain officers and their compensation must be determined by the chief judge of the district court upon proper order entered.