Opinion ID: 2595503
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: deductions from green's salary

Text: ¶ 6 Turner and McMillan argue that the Commission's act of making deductions from Green's salary falls within the scope of Utah Code Ann. § 17-16-14, which provides as follows: The annual salaries of the officers of all counties in the state shall be fixed by the respective county legislative bodies, provided no changes shall be made in existing salaries of county officers until the county legislative body in a county desiring to change existing salaries of county officers shall first hold a public hearing at which all interested persons shall be given an opportunity to be heard. Turner and McMillan argue that this provision grants the Commission express power to deduct amounts paid to an outside auditor from Green's regular paychecks. They also maintain that the inherent implied powers the Commission possesses, see, e.g., Gardner v. Davis County, 523 P.2d 865, 867 (Utah 1974), and its discretionary supervisory power over county officers, see Utah Code Ann. § 17-5-213, [2] allow it to make salary deductions for the alleged failure of an officer to perform statutory duties. We disagree. ¶ 7 Section 17-16-14 plainly pertains to the fixing of annual salaries of county officers. As a matter of common sense, a fixed annual salary describes prospective, yearly pay. If the salary is subject to alterations in the midst of its prescribed term, then it is no longer a fixed salary at all, but a variable wage, adjusted according to the county legislative body's judgment about the performance of the officer's duties. ¶ 8 Moreover, the apparent purpose of section 17-16-14 relates to budgetary concerns. Prior to 1969, section 17-16-14 contained detailed information setting maximum annual salary levels for the various statutorily defined offices, indexed to the class level of the county. See, e.g., 1967 Utah Laws, ch. 32, § 1. It functioned in conjunction with the former section 17-16-15, which directed the county commissions to meet biennially for the purpose of fixing the specific salary levels. [3] In 1969, section 17-16-15 was repealed. The general requirements relating to the timing of meetings to fix annual salaries were streamlined, simplified, and moved to section 17-16-14. This evidently allowed county legislative bodies more flexibility in the process by which they fixed annual salaries. ¶ 9 Despite the amendments, the essential nature of the provision has not been altered. It governs the method by which annual salaries are fixed. In this case, the Commission attempted to employ the statute as a punitive and remedial measure, sanctioning Green for alleged abuses of her office and seeking to recoup the costs of hiring an outside auditor. There is no indication the provision was intended to serve such purposes. Thus, the Commission's actions were not consonant with the evident scope of section 17-16-14. ¶ 10 We likewise find Turner's and McMillan's reliance upon the Commission's inherent and discretionary powers unavailing. If the Commission's authority under its generalized powers of supervision allowed discretionary deductions from an official's paycheck, the effect would be to eviscerate the requirement of section 17-16-14 that annual salaries be fixed. Moreover, the entire constitutional and statutory scheme defining the relevant spheres of authority of county officials would be jeopardized if we adopted Turner's and McMillan's interpretation. Taken to its logical conclusion, such a construction would allow county legislative bodies to directly hire persons to replace any elected official with whom they are displeased. We directly rejected this type of manipulation in Salt Lake County Commission v. Salt Lake County Attorney, 1999 UT 73, ¶ 21, 985 P.2d 899, 907 (holding county may not delegate statutory duties of county attorney to private counsel except in narrowly defined circumstances). [4] ¶ 11 Therefore, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment with respect to its interpretation of section 17-16-14. The Commission exceeded its statutory authority when it deducted amounts from Green's paychecks for the purpose of paying the costs of hiring an outside person to perform her official duties.