Request By:
Phyllis Highley
Deputy Secretary
Kentucky Public Employes
Deferred Compensation System
Capitol Annex
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Martin Glazer, Assistant Attorney General
You seek an opinion as to whether:
1. the following are classified as state employees:
A. circuit court clerk's office employees;
B. property valuation administrator's employees.
2. You also want to know whether such personnel can participate in the Commonwealth of Kentucky Public Employes Deferred Compensation Plan as state employees.
3. And, finally, you ask whether they would be eligible to participate in another deferred compensation plan such as the County Employes Deferred Compensation Plan.
Under the new judicial article of the Constitution of Kentucky, specifically Section 114(3), the clerks of the circuit courts are elected and shall serve as clerks of the district courts as well. They are removable from office by the Supreme Court upon good cause shown.
Further, KRS 30A.010(2) provides:
"As personnel within the Court of Justice, clerks are state officers whose duties are coextensive with the Commonwealth, and who are subject to the administrative control of the chief justice."
Since the circuit court clerk is a state officer, his deputies are deputy state officers, or state employees.
The Property Valuation Administrator, formerly county tax commissioner or assessor, has early been held to be a state officer. For example, in
Jefferson County Fiscal Court v. Trager, 302 Ky. 361, 194 S.W.2d 851 (1946), it was held that the county tax commissioner is a state officer. That being so, his employees and deputies are either deputy state officers or state employees.
Further, KRS 132.370(3) permits the PVAs and their deputies and assistants to participate in the Kentucky Public Employes Deferred Compensation system.
KRS 18.510(1) defines "employe" for purposes of the deferred compensation system aforesaid as ". . . a person holding an office, position or employment in state government and agencies thereof and also includes persons in the public school system."
Thus, since PVAs and their deputies and employees are specifically authorized to participate in the deferred compensation system and both PVAs and circuit court clerks are state officers, they meet the definition of "employe" set out in KRS 18.510(1), and so do their deputies and employees.
As to whether such entities can participate in a county deferred compensation plan, KRS 18.590(1) provides that: "Any city, county, or other political subdivision or combination of those entities may establish for its employes a deferred compensation program. . . ." (Emphasis supplied.)
Thus, that statute authorizes a local political subdivision or combination of same to provide for its employees. A circuit court clerk, and his deputies, and a PVA and his deputies, are state officers and employees, not city, or county officers and employees. Therefore, those two types of officers and employees cannot participate in the local program.