Request By:
Honorable Kendall Robinson
Owsley County Attorney
Box 34
Booneville, Kentucky 41314
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The Owsley County Jail has been condemned and closed. However, the demise of the Jail has brought its attendant problems. The newly elected Jailer wants the Fiscal Court to pay his rent and utilities of his private residence until the Jail is reopened or the living quarters are made more suitable in the Jail. You ask if this would be legal. The answer is "no."
KRS 71.020 provides that where the jail building is suitable, the jailer or one of his deputies shall reside in the jail. Here the jail is closed and not suitable for the Jailer's residence. We know of no statute which permits the fiscal court to pay for the Jailer's living quarters located outside of an operating jail. Further, the Jailer's living in the jail can only legally take place when he is actually operating the County Jail in such building. To put it simply, he has no authority to live in a closed jail. The statutes make no provision for the Jailer's presiding over a closed, condemned, and empty Jail.
The critical factor in this situation concerns the fiscal court, and not the Jailer. The fiscal court has an affirmative duty to provide a sufficient jail within a reasonable time. KRS 67.080(4).
Next you ask whether or not the Jailer can be reimbursed for travel expenses for hauling garbage and waste from the courthouse to a landfill located in another county [there is no landfill in Owsley].
a method of correcting an erroneous assessment based upon an administrative mistake as to ownership of the taxable property. Fannin v. Davis, Ky., 385 S.W.2d 321 (1964) 328. See KRS 133.130, as amended in 1976 (Ex. Sess.) Ch. 14, § 147, effective January 2, 1978. The amended statute uses the term "county court." If the legislature had intended to mean "district court", it could have so easily said so. See Acts of 1976 (Ex. Sess.) Ch. 20, § 6, providing that "county judge/executive" should be substituted for "county judge" or "county court", provided the function is essentially nonjudicial in nature. Our conclusion is the same for KRS 133.110 [correction of clerical errors in assessment].
Who appoints the county police force? The answer is: the county judge/executive. Acts of 1976 (Ex. Sess.) Ch. 20, § 6. A secretary of the county police force is appointed by the county judge/executive. See KRS 70.540.