Request By:
Ms. Joan Pitts
City Councilwoman
Adairville, Kentucky 42202
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of July 15, in which you raise the question as to whether the city council or the mayor is empowered to grant pay increases to city employees.
Pursuant to KRS 83A.070(3) you will note that the legislative body of each city shall fix the compensation of city employees in accordance with a personnel and pay classification plan which shall be adopted by ordinance. This statute requires the city legislative body to establish a position classification plan and a pay plan or schedule which includes a pay range for each job classification established and which also includes steps allowing an employee to progress through a particular pay range. Once the legislative body has established such a classification and pay range and provided sufficient funding in its budget, the positions of employment so established are filed by the mayor pursuant to KRS 83A.130(9).
A promotion in pay and grade of an employee is an executive function and therefore within the mayor's exclusive authority and over which the legislative body has no control except insofar as the classification ordinance provides. Such ordinance can be amended from time to time. Concerning the question of who controls employee promotions, which would of course include a pay increase, we refer you to the case of
Seiter v. City of Covington, 290 Ky. 699, 162 S.W.2d 524 (1942).
As you know, the 1980 municipal code restricted the city council to purely legislative matters by declaring that it shall not perform any executive functions except those functions assigned to it by statute. At the same time, the chief executive officer of the city, who is the mayor under the councilmanic form of government, is vested with the executive authority of the city. See KRS 83A.130(3) and (11).