Request By:
Mr. C. Allen Muncy
Leslie County Judge/Executive
Courthouse
Hyden, Kentucky 41749
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You ask about the recording of appointments of officers by you as county judge/executive. For example, a vacancy in the office of sheriff, coroner, surveyor, county clerk, county attorney, jailer, constable or property valuation administrator, shall be filled by the "county court", which means the "county judge/executive". See KRS 63.220 and Acts of 1976 (Ex. Sess.) Ch. 20, § 6. These appointments are administrative and executive in nature.
You should make any such appointments by issuing an executive order of the county judge/executive, and such order should be recorded in the county clerk's office, since it is the office of general records, in what the clerk should designate as the "county judge/executive order book."
You ask: Who approves the bonds of elected county officers, etc.?
Schematically, here are several of the bonds you referred to: OfficerKRSApproved byCounty clerkNoneCounty Judge67.720Circuit JudgeCircuit Clerk30A.030Circuit JudgeCounty Treasurer68.010Fiscal CourtSheriff, Gen.70.020County judge/executiveSheriff, Gen. Rev.134.230County judge/executiveCounty Policemen70.560Fiscal Court andCounty judge/executiveConstable70.310County judge/executiveCoroner72.010County judge/executiveCounty Surveyor73.010County judge/executiveCounty Jailer71.010County judge/executiveCo. Bldg. Commission67.450County judge/executiveWater Dist. Cmsr's74.020(3)County judge/executive
The above list is not intended to be exhaustive. As concerns the county clerk, KRS 28.020 [clerk's bond approved by county judge] was repealed. However H.B. 103, as an emergency bill, has just been passed by the House and the Senate. The bill provides for a clerk's bond in KRS Chapter 62 in Kentucky counties generally of $50,000 [other than in counties of containing a city of 1st and 2nd class, certain urban counties, and urban county government] to be approved by county judge/executive. Where a corporate surety is involved in the sheriff's general revenue bond, the county judge/executive, with approval of the Department of Revenue, shall determine the sufficiency of that bond. We can find no authority for your approving the bonds of city policemen. Cf. 95.750.
You ask whether the county judge/executive can administer an oath?
KRS 62.020 provides that "The official oath of any officer may be administered by any judge, notary public, clerk of a court, or justice of the peace, . . ." (Emphasis added).
While administering an oath out of court is a nonjudicial function, it is our opinion that the legislature made provisions only for a judicial judge in this statute. Since the county judge/executive is no longer a judicial judge, the answer is that he cannot now administer an oath.