Request By:
Ms. Carol L. Woodyard
406 S. Main Street
Williamstown, Kentucky 41097
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You have written about certain activities of yours as a county commissioner on fiscal court.
You mention specific activities and inquire as to whether or not you would be entitled to any reimbursement from the county treasury.
The first category of activities concerns your being on the Kentucky Association of Counties Board. You say the board meets once a month in Frankfort. The annual expense allowance of up to $3600 per year, as provided in KRS 64.530(6), does not apply here, since that allowance relates only to your serving on committees of the fiscal court. Since K.A.C.O. was created and exists solely for county government in Kentucky, and considering that your work on the Board is reasonably calculated to be of benefit to your own fiscal court and county government, you could be reimbursed on a reasonable mileage basis for such travel expenses incurred in pursuing such work in the interest of the county. See KRS 64.530, Funk v. Milliken, Ky., 317 S.W.2d 499 (1958); and Barkley v. Gatewood, 285 Ky. 179, 147 S.W.2d 373 (1941). Such travel expenses must be documented in the manner required by Funk v. Milliken, above. Such payments out of the county treasury are subject to proper budgeting procedure under KRS Chapter 68. Here we are assuming that your county work with the K.A.C.O. Board is actual and necessary. The reimbursement could include registration fees, room and meal costs.
The same principle of a reasonable mileage reimbursement would apply to your attending fiscal court commissioners conventions and K.A.C.O. conventions.
You mention other activities. However, this reimbursement principle would not apply unless they relate strictly to your own county government, i.e., your fiscal court.
Finally, it must be understood that your reimbursement by the county for directly related county government activities is not mandatory. Further, where a majority of the fiscal court votes to reimburse you, such reimbursement must be in the contextual frame of a properly budgeted county fund for such purposes and the actual availability of the money. In addition, if you are to be reimbursed, then § 2 of the Kentucky Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution demand that all members of the fiscal court be reimbursed for similar and county government related activities.