Court Opinion

ID: 9766317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:41:13.043027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:21.305630
License: Public Domain

MONTGOMERY, Judge
(dissenting).
It is with extreme reluctance that I dissent from the majority opinion. The county officials should have their pay raised, but the proper way to do so is by amend*364ment or revision of Section 246 of the Kentucky Constitution as provided therein rather than by judicial fiat.
The majority opinion gives no constitutional authority for evasion of Section 246, which places a limitation on the compensation of public officers. The pertinent portion of the section follows:
“No public officer or employe except the Governor, shall receive as compensation per annum for official services * * * any amount in excess of the following sums: * * * all other public officers, Seven Thousand Two Hundred Dollars. * *
My views in support of the constitutional limitation are set forth in a dissent, concurred in by two other members of the Court, in Board of Education of Graves County v. DeWeese, Ky., 343 S.W.2d 598, where the section was evaded in a case involving the salary of a county school superintendent.
The holding of the majority in the present case is sought to be bottomed on the decision in Matthews v. Allen, Ky., 360 S.W.2d 135, in which it was held that Section 246 did not limit the salaries of circuit judges. I disqualified and did not sit in that case for personal reasons.
The decision in that case had two bases: One, the so-called “elastic dollar” theory, and the other, Section 133 of the Kentucky Constitution. Section 133 provides:
“The Judges of the Circuit Court shall, at stated times, receive for their services an adequate compensation to be fixed by law, which shall be equal and uniform throughout the State, so far as the same shall be paid out of the State Treasury.”
In my opinion Section 133 afforded a constitutionally justifiable basis for the increase in compensation for circuit judges; otherwise, it would serve no purpose in the Constitution. See Kentucky Constitution, Section 112; Stone v. Pryor, 103 Ky. 645, 45 S.W. 1053, 1136; and Perkins v. Sims, Ky., 350 S.W.2d 715. But this section cannot be used as a basis for sustaining the majority opinion here because the officers involved are not circuit judges.
Therefore, the majority opinion is relegated to the “elastic dollar” basis for justification. It is sufficient to say, in my opinion, that no economic theory is justification for amending or evading a constitutional provision. The 1949 amendment to Section 246 came following a period of inflation after World War II, but there is nothing to indicate that the limitations therein were to be based on a fluctuating money standard. In the span of the experience of many of us, the buying power of the dollar has varied greatly. It has gone up; it has gone down. The majority opinion does not indicate whether the “elastic dollar” will contract in value as well as expand or the consequences of either action. Such a standard is too uncertain and defeats the whole principle of a monetary standard of values.
The irony of the situation is that such a decision should be reached when the constitutional processes of revision have been set in progress and will soon reach the stage when the people of the Commonwealth will be called upon to voice their sentiments in this regard. This is the system of government heretofore contemplated as the democratic process. Any other system of government can lead only to chaos and destruction of orderly government. If the Court of Appeals is to constitute itself as an all-wise super-legislature, then the Constitution Revision Assembly may just as well disband. Its services will no longer be needed.
As a strong believer in our Constitution, I feel that it is my humble duty to uphold it, whatever the consequences. For these reasons I cannot agree with the majority opinion.
HILL, J., concurs.