Request By:
Mr. 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
KRS 179.020 provides for the employment of a county road supervisor by the county judge/executive, with the consent of the fiscal court [Acts 1976 (Ex. Sess.), Ch. 20, § 6]. The period of employment must be for two or four years at the discretion of the fiscal court, beginning with the second Tuesday of January of an even numbered year. The Nicholas County road supervisor, who met all the statutory qualifications, was employed in January, 1967, for a trial period of two months. At the conclusion of that period he was kept on through the years with no further fiscal court orders of record reemploying him every two or four years as required by the statute. There are periodic orders providing for increase in his salary. An order was entered at the meeting of June 1, 1977, providing for him to be hired for one year commencing July 1, 1977.
Specifically you request our opinion as to his employment status as of July 1, 1978.
KRS 179.020(7) reads:
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"(7) The period of employment for any county road engineer or county road supervisor shall be two (2) or four (4) years, in the discretion of the fiscal court, beginning with the second Tuesday in January of an even-numbered year. Other terms of employment, and the salaries of all persons employed under the provisions of this section, shall be fixed by the fiscal court."
It is obvious that the fiscal court has not complied with the terms of the statute. The appointee is presently not legally in possession of that office. If this appointment of a county road supervisor is to be legal, then the county judge/executive should appoint a road supervisor, with the consent of the fiscal court, for a specific period of employment to be for either two or four years, which can be made retroactive to the second Tuesday of January, 1978.
There is nothing to prevent the county judge/executive from appointing, with consent of the fiscal court, the present road supervisor, who you say has met all the statutory qualifications, except that they must choose either a two year term or a four year term precisely as the statute requires. If the county judge/executive appoints this man as road supervisor, he should enter such appointment in his executive order book, provided that the fiscal court as a body approves such appointment, for either a two year term or a four year term by an appropriately entered order of the fiscal court.
While the incumbent road supervisor's appointment was ineffective, he may remain in office until proper orders are entered, as mentioned above, or until his successor is appointed and qualified.