Request By:
Mr. James A. Knight
Johnson County Attorney
Courthouse Annex
Paintsville, Kentucky 41240
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You requested, in your recent letter, the opinion of this office on the following question:
"In order to remove a county treasurer for cause, must the county judge recommend that removal as provided in KRS 67.710 Subsection 7 or does the fiscal court have the power to remove for cause, the county treasurer as set out in KRS 68.010?"
KRS 68.010(3) provides that "The fiscal court may remove the county treasurer at any time for neglect of duty, incompetency or dishonesty. " That section was amended in 1980 (Ch. 90, Section 1, 1980 regular session). The change involved the treasurer's term. Subsection (3) was merely republished.
KRS 67.710(7) and (8), enacted in the 1976 Extraordinary Session (Ch. 20, Section 3), provides that the hiring and firing of county personnel and persons filling an administrative position created by law requires the county judge/executive to nominate such persons for hiring or firing, subject to the approval or disapproval of the fiscal court as a body.
When reading the two subsections together, that procedure just described must be employed generally, except where otherwise provided by statute.
We conclude here, as we did in OAG 80-175, copy enclosed, that KRS 67.710(8) governs the appointment of a county treasurer. KRS 68.010(1) and 67.710(8) are in irreconcilable conflict, and the later legislation governs. Washburn v. Paducah Newspapers, Ky., 121 S.W.2d 911 (1938) 914.
However, KRS 68.010(3), relating to the discharge or removal of a county treasurer, is a distinctly separate matter. The removal of that "term" officer can only be for legal cause, i.e., for neglect of duty, incompetency or dishonesty. Due process requires that the determination of the existence or nonexistence of such legal grounds for removal be made only after a proper hearing before the fiscal court. See § 2, Kentucky Constitution, and Pritchett v. Marshall, Ky., 375 S.W.2d 253 (1963). Thus because of the peculiar nature of the removal of a county treasurer, under KRS 68.010(3), it is our opinion that the special provisions of that statute govern over the general system of discharge as contained in KRS 67.710(8). Thus the discharge of a county treasurer is strictly up to the fiscal court, as a body, after a due process hearing. This kind of special statutory treatment is the kind of thing envisioned in the phrase "unless otherwise provided by law", as it appears in KRS 67.710(7) (which must be read together with KRS 67.710(8)). Actually the general wording of KRS 67.710(7) and (8) is designed to cover the hiring and firing of persons who are subject to the will of the appointing authority, i.e., the fiscal court. The special situation set out in KRS 68.010(3) transcends that general situation involved in KRS 67.710(7) and (8).