Request By:
Thomas H. Goff
Grayson County Attorney
10 Public Square
Leitchfield, Kentucky 42754
Opinion
Opinion By: Chris Gorman, Attorney General; Ross T. Carter, Assistant Attorney General
You have asked whether attorneys employed by a county attorney to collect child support must reside in the county in which they are employed. You state that the collection attorneys are not permitted to do criminal work and are employed through an independent employment contract. You state that the attorneys work in the child support division of the county attorney's office solely for the purpose of collecting child support and establishing paternities.
KRS 69.300 states, "The assistant county attorneys shall reside in the county in which the county attorney is elected. . . ." The statute also states that assistant county attorneys have the same powers and duties as county attorneys except that they are under the supervision of the county attorney. Your question thus becomes whether attorneys who collect child support and establish paternities are assistant county attorneys.
Although your letter does not indicate precisely what the child support collection attorneys do, we are aware of at least three kinds of legal proceedings in which they might appear. The first is paternity actions, which according to KRS 406.021(1) "shall be brought by the county attorney upon the request of such complainant herein authorized." The second is URESA actions filed under KRS chapter 407. URESA actions must be prosecuted by the county attorney pursuant to KRS 407.250(2). The third action is a collection action initiated by the Cabinet for Human Resources. Under KRS 205.712(4), the county attorney "shall be considered the designee of the cabinet for purposes of administering" the child support program.
In each of these three actions, the county attorney is designated by statute as the party responsible for maintaining the suit. There is no statutory authority for the county attorney to subcontract or delegate the function to an attorney not under his direct control and supervision. We believe that an attorney who prosecutes any of the three actions described above is performing a part of the county attorney's official duties and must therefore be considered an assistant county attorney. As a result, the attorney is required to live in the county for which the county attorney was elected.