Request By:
Hon. Stephen W. Neathery
Magistrate, Cumberland County District 2
1065 Bakerton Ferry Road
Bakerton, Kentucky 42711
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Gerard R. Gerhard, Assistant Attorney General, (502) 564-7600
Re: Whether Fiscal Court or County Judge/ExecutiveAssigns Office Space for County Judge/Executive.AGO Corr. No. 91-(0)-1753.
By letter of about November 16, 1991, you ask who has authority to assign office space for the county judge/executive. Can such assignment, you ask, be done by the fiscal court, or is it the responsibility of the county judge/executive only.
Assignment of office space for the county judge/executive, as is the case for other officers and employees of the county, is a function of the fiscal court.
KRS 67.080(2)(b) provides, in part, for the fiscal court to cause the operation of county buildings, and KRS 67.080(1)(c) empowers the fiscal court to regulate and control the fiscal affairs of the county. Under these general empowerments, the fiscal court has the authority to assign office space for the county judge/executive and other county employees.
Exercise by the Fiscal Court of its authority to assign office space is subject to specific provisions of the statutes, and the ban on arbitrariness expressed in § 2 of Kentucky's Constitution, or stated another way, the reasonable exercise of discretion. See generally for reasoning, OAG's 65-750, 67-264, 70-238, and 75-404, copies enclosed.