Request By:
Robert H. Allphin
Commissioner
Commonwealth of Kentucky
Department of Revenue
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Martin Glazer, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an interpretation of KRS 132.590 and specifically as follows: "Whether the department [Revenue] is authorized to establish higher grades for PVAs [property valuation administrators] than the Grade 22 established in KRS 132.590?"
This is the third request this year as far as we can remember concerning an interpretation of this statute. Undoubtedly, the clarity of its provisions leave much to be desired. That many requests should point up the need for a draft of statutory change in the next legislative session. In the meantime, we need to provide some guidance to your department.
Subsection 1 provides that the PVA shall receive grade classifications based upon a point formula designating various points for area, population, and assessed value of property in the county. The highest grade classification is a grade 22 where the number of points is at least 5,000 with descending gradations based upon lesser scales of points to a minimum of grade 14.
If this were the only section that dealt with the subject matter, we would have no hesitancy to advise that the maximum grade classification that a PVA could receive is a grade 22.
However, subsection 4 provides, in part:
". . . the Department of Revenue is authorized to make grade classification changes corresponding to any approved for department employes in comparable positions so long as such changes do not violate the integrity of the classification system and, except further, subject to availability of funds, that the department may extend cost-of-living increases approved for department employes to the property valuation administrators by advancement in grade. "
If subsection 4, aforequoted, were dealing with the deputy PVAs, we could conclude that the maximum or top that any PVA or deputy could receive would be a grade 22. However, deputies are dealt with in subsection 5. There appears to be an apparent conflict between subsection 1 and subsection 4. On the one hand, PVAs may not receive more than a grade 22. On the other hand, they may receive grade Classification changes comparable to the same positions within the Department of Revenue and may receive cost-of-living increases it such are given to Revenue Department employees.
In dealing with statutory construction, there are certain basic rules to be followed. For example, in George v. Scent, Ky., 346 S.W.2d 784, (1961), it was held that the presumption is that the legislature intends an act to be effective as an entirety, and significance and effect must be accorded to each part of the act if possible. In substance, two acts or two sections of the same act should be considered in para materia, that is, together.
Therefore, considering these sections together, it is our conclusion that initially the maximum grade for PVAs with at least 5,000 points would be 22. That section was apparently in the statutes even in 1976 and was not changed when the act was amended in 1978. It was obviously contemplated by the legislature that there would need to be grade changes if comparable departmental positions were changed or there were given cost-of-living increases.
So, the Department of Revenue could determine what comparable positions exist in the Department to the PVA, and make grade changes based upon such comparable positions, but keeping the ratio of one grade variances based upon the formula set out in subsection 1 of KRS 132.590 in order to maintain "the integrity of the classification system" [subsection 4] set out in said statute.