Kentucky Revised Statutes Title VIII. Offices and Officers § 64.480.Compensation of elective state officers; adjustment of salaries

(1) Effective, with respect to the offices of Governor on December 11, 1979, and Lieutenant Governor on the fifth Tuesday following the regular November election in 1975, and with respect to the other offices named in this section on the first Monday in January, 1976, the compensation of the following named officers, payable monthly out of the State Treasury, shall be the sum per annum designated for the respective offices, as follows: Governor, forty-five thousand dollars ($45,000) until December 11, 1981, then fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) until December 13, 1983, and then sixty thousand dollars ($60,000) until January 1, 1985; Lieutenant Governor, twenty-seven thousand nine hundred dollars ($27,900) per annum, plus any compensation received while acting in the place of the Governor; Attorney General, Commissioner of Agriculture, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, Auditor of Public Accounts, and clerk of the Supreme Court of Kentucky elected in November, 1975, as clerk of the Court of Appeals, twenty-seven thousand nine hundred dollars ($27,900).

(2) In order to equate or adjust the compensation of the Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Commissioner of Agriculture, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, Auditor of Public Accounts, and clerk of the Supreme Court of Kentucky with the purchasing power of the 1949 dollar, the Department for Local Government of Kentucky shall compute by the second Friday in February of every year, beginning in 1977, the maximum permissible compensation of the officials mentioned in this subsection based precisely upon the consumer price index formula approved in Matthews v. Allen, Kentucky, 360 S.W.2d 139 (1962). Thus the maximum permissible compensation effective for the entire year of 1977 and subsequent years will be the actual compensation to be paid said officials. The year of adjustment will be the particular full calendar year involved.

(3) It is the intention of the Legislature that the constitutionally permissible adjustment of salaries of these officials be framed around equating current salaries with the purchasing power of the dollar in 1949 when Section 246 of the Constitution of Kentucky was amended.Section 246 of the Constitution of Kentucky, as amended, established a monetary level of twelve thousand dollars ($12,000) per annum for said officials. The formula merely effects an adjustment of the constitutional monetary level in terms of the current consumer price index.

(4) In order to adjust the compensation of the Governor to reflect changes in the purchasing power of the dollar, the Department for Local Government shall compute by the second Friday in February of every year, beginning in 1985, an adjusted salary of the Governor by multiplying sixty thousand dollars ($60,000) by the increase in the consumer price index during the period from January 1, 1984, to the beginning of the then-current calendar year. The actual compensation paid to the Governor for the entire calendar year of 1985 and subsequent years shall be the adjusted salary.