Request By:
Mr. Phil Allan Bertram
Attorney at Law
205 East Broadway
P.O. Box 217
Campbellsville, Kentucky 42718
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You refer to OAG 82-253, relating to H.B. 378, 1982 reqular session.
Under section 1(3) of that bill, amending KRS 67.705, the minimal annual compensation paid to the county judge executive, except in urban county governments, shall be the greater of a sum not less than 60% of the maximum compensation certified under KRS 64.527 (maximum payable to a local constitutional officer in 1982 is $28,387.00 under the rubber dollar cases), or not less than the annual compensation of the sheriff or county clerk or jailer in the county.
We concluded that the bill applies retroactively back to January 1, 1982, as relates to this calendar year. Thus if the sheriff, or county clerk, or jailer makes $28,387.00 as the annual compensation for 1982, the county judge executive will be paid $28,387.00 for 1982. It is retroactive since the local constitutional officers' salaries are on an annual basis.
You believe that the application of H.B. 378 to the county judge executive's salary in 1982 would violate § 161 and 235 of the Kentucky Constitution. Those sections prohibit a change in compensation during the term of office. You cite Adams v. Slavin, 225 Ky. 135, 7 S.W.2d 836 (1928) and Smith v. Harlan County Fiscal Court, Ky., 329 S.W.2d 61 (1959). However, those cases are prior to Matthews v. Allen, Ky., 360 S.W.2d 135 (1962), and Commonwealth v. Hesch, Ky., 395 S.W.2d 362 (1965). In those cases the court held that § 246 (last amended in 1949) of the Kentucky Constitution may be periodically applied to all constitutional officers in terms which equate current salaries with the purchasing power of the dollar in 1949 when Section 246 was adopted. Thus through implementing legislation, the legislature could adopt the Consumer Price Index in arriving at what would be adequate compensation in terms of the present dollar value. The court was merely recognizing the economic reality of a decrease in purchasing power since the adoption of Section 246 in 1949.
The legislation dealing with the county judge executive's salary is strictly in the context of the rubber dollarconsumer price index formulation. Thus the fixing of the county judge executive's salary in 1982 is not a change in compensation, in the constitutional sense, but is a fixation in terms of affording those officers with the application of the consumer price index theory previously adopted by Kentucky's then highest court. Cf. Carey v. Washington Cty. Fiscal Court, Ky. App., 575 S.W.2d 161 (1979), involving the legislature's changing a flat maximum salary of coroners to an increased flat maximum salary of coroners. There the legislature made no attempt to make the minimum compensation provision as a part of the rubber dollar concept. Here, in the case of H.B. 378, the county judge executive's salary is placed strictly within the operative workings of the rubber dollar principle. See the literal language of the amended KRS 67.705. Here the legislature acted affirmatively in putting the rubber dollar doctrine into application.