Request By:
Mr. Wm. Horace Brown
Chairman
Environmental Quality Commission
527 1/2 Main Street
Shelbyville, Kentucky 40065
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
In your letter you raise a question concerning the compensation afforded to the members of the Kentucky Environmental Quality Commission. Specifically the request for an opinion concerns your work on the Commission as Chairman. Your letter reads:
"In my capacity as chairman of Kentucky's Environmental Quality Commission, I not only attend the Commission's regularly scheduled monthly meetings, but also am requested to attend many other meetings, such as various public meetings that we are sponsoring, various committee meetings that I am to be a part of, various legislative committee meetings to testify in behalf of regulations or proposed laws, and other similar meetings. It is my understanding that I am to be reimbursed my expenses and receive a $25.00 per day compensation for meetings. However, it is not clear to me whether I am entitled to the $25.00 per day compensation for all of the other meetings over and above the one regular monthly meeting, even though all of the other meetings are directly related to Environmental Quality Commission business. Please advise, because these additional meetings are becoming so numerous that they are requiring a lot of time and effort. Even though $25.00 per day is a small compensation, it will help recuperate the income lost by this volunteer effort."
Your specific question is whether or not you are entitled to the $25 per day compensation for all meetings other than the regular monthly meetings, as well as for the regular monthly meetings.
KRS 224.041(5) reads:
"Members of the commission shall receive twenty-five dollars ($25.00) per day for each meeting attended and may be reimbursed for actual and necessary expenses incurred in the performance of official duties." (Emphasis added).
We can find no statute defining the word "meeting" as it appears in KRS 224.041(5). However, in subsection (9) of the same statute, we believe the meaning of the word "meeting" of subsection (5) is clearly exposed. That subsection reads:
"(9) The commission shall hold regular meetings at least once in every three (3) months, the time and place of which shall be determined by the commission. Special meetings may be called by the chairman or by three (3) members of the commission by delivery to each member of the commission of a written notice thereof at least five (5) days in advance of the date of any such meeting. Four (4) members of the commission shall constitute a quorum at any meeting. The commission shall establish bylaws for the conduct of its meeting and shall keep an accurate record of all its proceedings."
In Reeves v. Fidelity & Columbia Trust Co., 293 Ky. 544, 169 S.W.2d 621 (1943), the court wrote that "statutes shall be given practical interpretation to carry out manifest purpose." In looking at KRS 224.041, as a whole, it is our opinion that the $25.00 per day compensation payable to any commission member applies to "regular meetings" and to "special meetings", as specifically treated in KRS 224.041(9), and where a quorum is present for any business of the commission.
There is no limit to the number of regular meetings or special meetings that can be called. The statute merely states the minimum number of regular meetings. The commission can call special meetings, as detailed in subsection (9), and include on its agenda, subject to limitations of funds, "public hearings" on any matter within the scope of the Commission's responsibilities. See KRS 224.045, concerning the powers and duties of the commission. In the holding of regular and special meetings, the commission and the chairman must exercise their sound business judgment, and in the context of its powers and duties, in the holding of those regular and special meetings considered necessary in the carrying out of their statutory functions.