Request By:
Mr. David H. Bland
Kentucky Jailers Association
McCowans Ferry Road
Versailles, Kentucky 40383
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
KRS 64.830 provides for settlement of accounts of county officials upon vacation of office. KRS 64.830(4) reads:
"The outgoing county official shall be allowed and paid by the fiscal court the reasonable expenses actually incurred in preparing the receipt required under this section. Reasonable expenses actually incurred may include his office expenses and salary, and salaries of deputies and employes paid in accordance with the schedule of the previous year or the amount paid an auditor necessary in determining and verifying the final settlement to the fiscal court."
The statute, KRS 64.830, deals with the details of an outgoing county official's settling his accounts with fiscal court and obtaining a quietus.
You say that until this year the Kenton County Jailer was permitted to pay as prior year claims certain transitional costs associated with the jail pursuant to KRS 64.830. Recently he was advised by the State Finance Department that this had been an "inappropriate practice." You seek our opinion on this point.
It is our opinion that, under the express wording of KRS 64.830(4), the outgoing jailer must be paid for the transitional expenses (which includes the salary of himself and deputies and other necessary expenses), directly out of the county treasury. The statute says "the outgoing county official shall be allowed and paid by the fiscal court the reasonable expenses. . ." (Emphasis added.) Such salaries may be paid on the basis of what they were receiving in 1981.
Kenton County has a population of over 75,000. Thus KRS 64.345, involving the 75 percent account and the keeping of the receipts (fees, commissions) of the county clerk, the sheriff, and jailer, is involved. Any cumulative excess in the 75 percent account of such officers at the end of the normal term of their office goes into the county treasury. See KRS 64.345 and KRS 64.350.
It is further our opinion that at the end of the term of the county clerk, sheriff, and jailer in such counties (75,000 population or more), the Finance Department of the state must turn over any excess money in the cumulative 75 percent account to the respective county fiscal court and treasury. Thus the excess in the 75 percent account, prior to its transfer to the county, is not subject to paying the transitional expenses involved in KRS 64.830(4).
In OAG 70-112, we said that the funding of the outgoing officer's expenses (the sheriff, KRS 134.215) is effected from the excess receipts of the outgoing sheriff which have accumulated by the end of his term, as relates to his 75 percent account. This apparently was misinterpreted to mean that the sheriff's transitional expenses could come directly out of excess 75 percent account money held by the Finance Department. We did not intend that construction. We simply meant that ultimately the county could utilize the excess 75 percent account, after it receives the excess, in the funding of the transitional expenses required by KRS 64.830(4). Moreover, there is nothing in KRS 134.215 authorizing the transitional expenses of the sheriff to be paid directly by the State Finance Department out of the sheriff's 75 percent excess fees.