Request By:
Jim Paitsel, Magistrate
Fulton County Fiscal Court
Opinion
Opinion By: Daniel Cameron,ATTORNEY GENERAL;Charles A. English,Assistant Attorney General
Opinion of the Attorney General
The Fulton County Fiscal Court requests this Office's opinion on whether in enacting its budget for the next fiscal year it may decline to pay its elected county officials the Consumer Price Index ("CPI") salary increase under KRS 64.5275. For the reasons that follow, this Office finds that the Fulton County Fiscal Court may not withhold paying the CPI salary increase for its elected county officials because the salary increase is mandatory under the statute.
KRS 64.5275 provides:
Further, KRS 67.080(2)(a) provides that "[t]he fiscal court shall . . . appropriate county funds . . . for purposes required by law."
Importantly, KRS 64.5275(4) requires the Department for Local Government, not the fiscal court, to "fix" the salaries of the elected county officials. Under the statute, the county officials are "entitled" to be paid the amount fixed by the Department of Local Government. Because the CPI increase in the county officials' salaries is required by KRS 64.5275(4), under KRS 67.080(2)(a), the fiscal court "shall" appropriate funds for that purpose. 1 See KRS 446.010(39) (stating that "shall," as used in statutes, is mandatory). The CPI salary adjustment, therefore, is mandatory and not optional.
For these reasons, it is this Office's opinion that the Fulton County Fiscal Court may not decline to pay the CPI salary increase required by KRS 64.5275 to its elected county officials.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 Pursuant to KRS 68.350, the state local finance officer may enforce county budgetary laws. The state local finance officer is the commissioner of the Department of Local Government or his designee. KRS 68.001.