Request By:
Mr. John T. Robertson
Christian County Clerk
Courthouse - 511 S. Main
Hopkinsville, Kentucky 42240
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General;By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You raise the question as to the proper procedure for setting the salaries of your deputies under KRS 64.530.
Christian County is one of the few counties operating under the fee-pooling system, whereby all the fees of the constitutional officers having fees, including the county clerk, are turned over to the county treasurer. Then the clerk's funding is budgeted annually by the fiscal court. The clerk's funding is expended through fiscal court and the county treasurer. All claims you have for the operation of your office must be approved by the fiscal court; and all warrants for the payment of funds from the county treasury must be cosigned by the county treasurer and the county judge executive. KRS 68.020(1). See OAG 74-1, copy enclosed, which was written before Christian County adopted the pooling system.
KRS 64.530(1), (3), and (4) provide that the fiscal court may fix the number of deputies of the local constitutional officer (here the county clerk) and their compensation not later than the first Monday in May in the year of the election of the clerk. That is for the new administration coming up in January, 1986.
We are not aware of any statute that would mandate the fiscal court to identify the deputies by name in the order setting their salaries at any time. We believe that the fiscal court in the salary order may use numbers to identify the deputy positions. Thus Deputy No. 1, Deputy No. 2, etc. Then, as the clerk appoints the deputies to fill the deputy positions, it is up to the clerk to maintain accurate records indicating precisely the names of the persons who were appointed to fill those deputy positions. For purposes of making out the pay checks from time to time, the clerk can simply make available to the county judge executive and the county treasurer the names of the persons who are filling those deputy positions. The system of payment just outlined constitutes adequate proof of the claims against the county treasury, from the standpoint of deputy identification. See Muenninghoff v. Bartholomew, 269 Ky. 36, 106 S.W.2d 97 (1937). A public officer under the law is entitled to receive his salary. Of course, this procedure in the payment of deputies of county clerks applies to any county clerk of a county containing less than 75,000 population, and which county pays at least a portion of the salaries of the deputy clerks. See KRS 64.720 and Harlan v. Sawyers, Ky., 290 S.W.2d 488 (1956).