Request By:
Mr. Frank M. Gary
Christian County Sheriff
Courthouse
Hopkinsville, Kentucky 42240
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
In your county the fees of your office are turned in to the county treasury, and the official expenses of your office are paid out of the county treasury. See KRS 67.080 and 67.083.
A question has arisen in connection with the return to Kentucky of fugitives from justice, pursuant to KRS 440.090. Your deputies act as agents of the state. They apparently use their own vehicles and are not on salaried time. Your specific question is whether or not the fiscal court has to approve the deputies' reimbursement for their mileage and other expenses under KRS 440.090 or their trip expenditures.
Since the county suffers no payments out of the county treasury for any aspect of the return of fugitives, and since the statute relates only to the reimbursement of agents for expenses, and does not involve compensation to them, it is our opinion that no fiscal court approval of such reimbursement or trip expenditures is provided for.
Literal language must surrender to the general scheme and purpose of the statute. Here that purpose is to pay all "necessary expenses" of the extradition agent.
Oates v. Simpson, 295 Ky. 433, 174 S.W.2d 505 (1943) 507. In other words, the agent is entitled to the reimbursement for necessary expenses incurred, including meals and lodging. Under the facts given, we are of the opinion that the accounting relationship between the sheriff's office and the county is not involved.
We are in receipt of the recent audit of the Christian County Sheriff's Office performed by the State Auditor's Office and have dissussed this matter with them. That office feels that where the sheriff is the agent in extradition, and the reimbursement check, written against the state treasury, is made out to the sheriff as payee, the sheriff should run that money through a special (public) account established at a local bank. We feel that this procedure is desirable since the sheriff is agent by reason of his official status and since he is receiving money from the treasury of Kentucky. See KRS 64.850. The reimbursement money is not fees nor compensation; however, it takes on a "public nature" until its disbursement. It is a control device which would be in the interest of preventing duplicate claims for expenses, and we would suggest that any sheriff's office institute such a procedure in the future.