Board of Educ. of Mason County v. Collins
| Decision Date | 19 June 1953 |
| Citation | 259 S.W.2d 17 |
| Parties | BOARD OF EDUCATION OF MASON COUNTY et al. v. COLLINS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
Houston L. Wood, Maysville, Clay Shackelford, Richmond, for appellants.
D. Bernard Coughlin, Maysville, for appellee.
CULLEN, Commissioner.
The Mason County Board of Education appeals from a judgment which allowed the sheriff of Mason County $3,782.75 as compensation for collecting the county school taxes for the fiscal year 1950-51. The total school taxes collected by the sheriff amounted to $201,210.40, and the compensation allowed by the court is the equivalent of a fee of 1.88 percent.
The board of education maintains that a reasonable fee would not exceed $800. This is on two theories; first, that the city treasurer of Maysville is paid only $600 for collecting $150,000 in city school taxes, which furnishes a standard of compensation for comparable work; and second, that clerks could be employed by the sheriff to handle the tax collection work at $38.47 per week, and the portion of the total compensation of the necessary number of clerks, allocable to school tax collection, would not exceed $800.
The argument of the board ignores our holding in Wells v. Board of Education of Menifee County, Ky., 244 S.W.2d 160, that the sheriff's services have a higher value than the sum at which a clerk could be hired. The argument further ignores the holding in the Wells case that the sheriff is entitled to some allowance for 'standby' time, and the ruling in Davie v. Board of Education of Hickman City Schools, Ky., 249 S.W.2d 954, that consideration must be given to the necessity of the sheriff's maintaining a staff on a year around basis. The amount suggested by the board as being a reasonable fee is so low as hardly to merit serious consideration.
The judgment does not disclose what computation the trial judge employed in reaching the figure of $3,782.75. The evidence was that the sheriff had three full-time deputies, on salaries of $2,000 each per year. He also had two part-time deputies who devoted their time solely to tax collection work, and who were paid a total of $670. The fiscal court had fixed $7,200 as the maximum limit on the sheriff's annual compensation, and in view of the size and wealth of Mason County we think that the amount so fixed constitutes a reasonable valuation of the sheriff's services for a year.
An amount approximating the sum of $3,782.75 allowed by the lower court could have been reached by (1) determining that 90 percent of the time of the sheriff and his regular deputies for a...
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