Request By:
Mr. Henry Dunn
Local Government Projects Coordinator
Department of Local Government
Capital Plaza Tower
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your office is engaged in a program of providing technical assistance in personnel administration to cities and counties.
Question No. 1:
"To what extent may a county judge executive and/or fiscal court require appointed employees of sheriffs, county court clerks, and jailers to comply with and be under a salary plan, which has a minimum and maximum scale, granting step increases at specific times, and, also, authority to say specifically who receives what adjustment; (performance evaluation of the employee) at what time?"
The "appointed employees" you refer to are really the deputies of the constitutional offices of the sheriff, county clerk and jailer. See § 99, Kentucky Constitution. Such deputies are appointed by those constitutional officers at their will. See KRS 70.030 and 71.060.
The determination of the number of such deputies and their specific (not approximate) salaries is a responsibility of the fiscal court, pursuant to KRS 64.530. Funk v. Milliken, Ky., 317 S.W.2d 499 (1958). Considering the literal language of KRS 64.530(1), (2), (3), and (4), it is our opinion that the fiscal court is required to fix the precise compensation of such deputies; and the fiscal court would have no authority to establish by written order a minimum or maximum scale of salaries or a program of step increases to be awarded at specific times, or a performance evaluation in terms of who receives the salary adjustment. The significant point here is that KRS 64.530 is preemptive in nature as relates to salaries of deputies of constitutional officers. Any extensions or refinements in the fiscal court's setting of such salaries is addressed to the General Assembly.
The county judge executive, alone, has no authority in the salary fixation field under KRS 64.530. As a member of the fiscal court his vote on salary action permitted the fiscal court under KRS 64.530, as above delineated, must be noted in determining passage of a proposed salary fixation order.
In addition, powers of fiscal court and the county judge executive depend wholly upon express powers delegated to them by the General Assembly or powers which are strongly and necessarily implied. See Fiscal Court v. City of Louisville, Ky., 559 S.W.2d 478 (1977); and KRS 67.083.
Question No. 2:
"Can personnel policies be adopted by the judge/fiscal court which will apply to these appointed employees, stating amount of vacation time they shall receive?"
The deputies of these constitutional officers are public officers who are wholly responsible to the constitutional officer who appoints them. Howard v. Saylor, 305 Ky. 504, 204 S.W.2d 815 (1947) 817. Such deputies may be considered as "employees" under an appropriate statute (e.g., see KRS 337.285, relating to time and a half for employment); but they are employees, if at all, of the constitutional officer who appoints them. See OAG 82-625, published, Banks-Baldwin, at page 2-669.
It is our opinion that the fiscal court has no authority to legislate on the subject of vacation time for the constitutional officers' deputies. That is an area addressed to the General Assembly, since such deputies are not, strictly speaking, employees of the county government, i.e., fiscal court. The county judge executive, as an individual officer, has no legislative authority. KRS 67.710.