Request By:
Mr. Gardner D. Wagers
Clark County Judge/Executive
Courthouse
P.O. Box 5
Winchester, Kentucky 40391
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The outgoing county jailer agreed to spend $4,250 of his fees to purchase a guard dog for the Clark County Jail for the newly elected jailer. The fiscal court was not consulted prior to the purchase of the dog.
The Clark Fiscal Court recently, to prevent a similar problem in the future, passed an order or resolution forbidding the fee offices from making any purchase in excess of $1,000, without first having fiscal court approval. You wonder whether such a restraint may be placed upon the county fee offices, such as the county jailer.
The court pointed out in Funk v. Milliken, Ky., 317 S.W.2d 499 (1958) 507, that certain office expenses may be credited against the excess fees of a constitutional fee officer. Excess fees are those fees remaining after payment for the officer's personal compensation and the compensation of his authorized deputies. Such credit may be allowed for expenses that are reasonable in amount, beneficial to the public, and not predominantly personal to the officer in the sense that by common understanding and practice they are considered to be personal expenses. Thus, under KRS 64.530(3), the fiscal court may fix, inter alia, the maximum amount that the officer may expend each year for expenses of his offices. The court wrote in Funk v. Milliken, above, that this means that the fiscal court may fix, in advance, the categories of reasonable official expenses that will be allowed and the maximum amount that will be allowed for each category. In such case, the officer still will be required to submit a detailed account of the expenses, with adequate supporting data, in order to obtain credit against his excess fees.
The specific answer to your question is that the fiscal court, under KRS 64.530, has the authority to establish, in advance, categories of reasonable official expenses allowable and the maximum amount that will be allowed for each category. "Allowable expenses" was defined above in Funk v. Milliken. The courts would not be inclined to set aside the $1,000 limitation on purchases, in the absence of showing arbitrariness on the part of fiscal court.
Although this dog was purchased prior to the fiscal court's resolution on purchase limitation, the dog purchase could be given credit against the jailer's excess fees, provided the jailer can show that the expense is reasonable in amount, beneficial to the public and is not a personal expense. Further, the jailer must show the specific amount and purpose of the dog purchase.
In addition to the above, a county fee officer must observe KRS 424.260 or the model procurement law, whenever applicable (see KRS 45A.343), in order to receive proper credit against his excess fees. See KRS 45A.385. Otherwise a purchase would be void.