Request By:
Mr. Ed Bowling
Laurel County Coroner
1704 North Main Street
London, Kentucky 40741
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You are the elected coroner of Laurel County. As of July 1, 1982, the Laurel County Fiscal Court finally allotted you a fifty dollars ($50) per month expense account. From July 1, 1982, through August 23, 1982, you traveled one hundred and seven miles (107) on coroner cases. As you understand it, KRS 72.415 requires the fiscal court to pay the expenses of the coroner's office. You were informed that the county has set up no mileage expense account.
You seek our opinion as to an expense allowance.
KRS 72.410 through 72.470 (Coroners Act of 1978) set forth the duties of coroners.
KRS 72.415(1), as amended in 1982 (Ch. 195, § 11), reads:
"For the purpose of enforcing the provisions of KRS 72.410 to 72.470, coroners and deputy coroners shall have the full power and authority of peace officers in this state, including the power of arrest and the authority to bear arms, and shall have the power and authority to administer oaths, to enter upon public or private premises for the purpose of making investigations, to seize evidence, to interrogate persons, to require the production of medical records, books, papers documents, or other evidence, and to impound vehicles involved in vehicular deaths, employ special investigators and photographers, and to expend funds for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of KRS 72.410 to 72.470. The fiscal court or urban-county government shall pay all reasonable expenses incurred by the coroner in carrying out his responsibilities under the provisions of KRS 72.410 to 74.470."
Clearly KRS 72.415(2) imposes upon each fiscal court and urban county government the responsibility of paying "all reasonable expenses" incurred by the coroner in carrying out his responsibilities under the provisions of KRS 72.410 to 72.470. (Emphasis added). "All reasonable expenses" refers to all those expenses actually incurred by the coroner in carrying out his statutory duties which expenses are reasonable in amount and which are reasonably necessary in the performance of such duties. However, where the statutory function is spelled out clearly by the General Assembly, as is the case generally in KRS Chapter 72, the courts have taken the view that the basic necessity and expediency of such statutory functions involves political, not judicial questions. Thus the legislative determination of the coroner's functions would be conclusive and not reviewable by the courts. To that extent the power of the General Assembly is indeed awesome. See Davidson v. Commonwealth, 249 Ky. 568, 61 S.W.2d 34 (1933) 36, 37.
There is no statute that specifically treats your mileage as such. The main point is that the fiscal court must pay your reasonable expenses in carrying out your duties.
The fiscal court has no authority to set up a blanket expense allowance, as such. They can only pay your reasonable expenses on appropriate documentation after the fact.