Request By:
Mr. Roger Bill Bailey
Magistrate
Route #11
Bagdad, Kentucky 40003
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
In May 1977 the fiscal court set the county judge/executive's salary at the minimum level. We assume you mean 60% of the maximum rubber dollar level of 1978 [which will be about $18,000 per annum]. That would figure $10,800 per year.
You ask whether the fiscal court can now raise his salary to the total amount the county judge received in 1976 as public compensation for that office.
Under KRS 67.705, one minimum is 60% of the maximum rubber dollar amount permissible under KRS 64.527 [$10,800]. However, the statute [subsection (4)] provides another minimum of "not less than the total annual compensation received by that official during calendar year 1976." The county judge in Shelby County in 1976 received as his official compensation the sum of $16,786.00.
We are of the opinion that the county judge/executive is entitled to the higher minimum; and thus the fiscal court should now adjust his compensation to not less than $16,786 per year as the statute mandates. This is merely a mandatory minimum under the rubber dollar theory. See Dennis v. Rich, Ky., 434 S.W.2d 632 (1968).