Kenton County Fiscal Court v. Elfers

981 S.W.2d 553, 1998 Ky. App. LEXIS 104, 1998 WL 754457
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedOctober 30, 1998
DocketNo. 1997-CA-001971-MR
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 981 S.W.2d 553 (Kenton County Fiscal Court v. Elfers) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kenton County Fiscal Court v. Elfers, 981 S.W.2d 553, 1998 Ky. App. LEXIS 104, 1998 WL 754457 (Ky. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinions

OPINION

JOHNSON, Judge.

The Kenton County Fiscal Court and the Kenton County Attorney have appealed from the judgment of the Kenton Circuit Court entered on July 28, 1997, which determined the entitlement to funds that had accumulated in the Kenton County Attorney’s Domestic Relations checking account during the tenure of the appellee, John R. Elfers (El-fers), as Kenton County Attorney. We affirm.

The facts in this case are somewhat complex though not in dispute. In 1975, in an effort to address the significant problem of nonsupport of children, the United States Congress passed legislation creating the Child Support Enforcement Program. The program is generally referred to as Title IVD of the Social Security Act (the IV-D program). 42 U.S.C. 651 et seq. The IV-D program provides federal matching funds to states to assist in locating absent parents, in establishing paternity, obtaining child support and enforcing child support orders for families who receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and for those who do not qualify for such benefits. States are required to have a IV-D program in order to remain eligible for AFDC funding. Since its inception, the program has been administered in Kentucky by the Cabinet for Human Resources (the Cabinet) and more specifically, the Cabinet’s Department for Social Insurance, Division of Child Support Enforcement. See Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 205.710 et seq.

In the beginning of the IV-D program, the Cabinet looked to the fiscal courts of our counties to supply IV-D services. Prior to 1976, when Kentucky’s Judicial Amendments [555]*555became effective, the collection of child support had traditionally been a function of the county fiscal courts. In 1978, the Kenton County Fiscal Court transferred all child support collection efforts to Elfers who already had a contract with the Cabinet to perform IV-D services. Elfers absorbed into his office those persons employed by the fiscal court in child support activities. Elfers became solely responsible for all the costs incurred with the collection of child support in Kenton County. It is undisputed that, beginning in 1978, the Kenton County Fiscal Court did not provide any funds for the child support program. No reports were requested or required from Elfers by the Kenton County Fiscal Court, and he did not report his child support activities to the fiscal court.

When Elfers took over the responsibility for child support collection, he also began receiving the “poundage” assessed in Kenton County on all child support collected. This fee was 2% of the support paid in 1978, but was increased to 3% in 1986. During the years 1976 through 1993, Elfers performed IV-D services under contracts with the Cabinet. In exchange for providing IV-D services, these contracts entitled Elfers to be reimbursed a portion of his office expenses, including an hourly rate for his own services. The rate of reimbursement changed1 over the years but was never 100% of the cost of the program.

In order to entice county attorneys to enroll in the program,2 and to assume liability for the “local match” (the unreimbursed costs of the program), the Cabinet encouraged and assisted county attorneys in getting their local fiscal courts to pass resolutions allowing the incentive payments received from the federal government to be paid directly to the county attorneys. The Kenton County Fiscal Court passed such a resolution in 1983. From 1978 until the early 1980’s, the incentive paid to the Kenton County Attorney was equal to 15% of the amount collected. It was reduced to 12% briefly and then changed to a formula based upon the effectiveness of the program, equivalent to 6 to 10% of the amount collected.

There is no question that when a fiscal court resolution was in place, the Cabinet treated the incentive payments as belonging to the individuals with whom it had contracted. Beginning in 1990, the contracts, including Elfers’, specifically provided as follows:

4. The IV-D Agency agrees to forward Federal reimbursement received from DHHS for the expenditures of the Second Party to the fiscal court, (political subdivision), assignee, or person that has fiscal responsibility and authority for the Second Party.
In the event a contracting official leaves office, he shall be entitled to receive reimbursement and incentives for the time period he was the contracting official of record, if a Fiscal Court Resolution exists.
All Resolutions stating “The Office of etc.” shall be interpreted to mean the contracting official of record.

From 1978 until 1993, Elfers put all the funds he received from poundage, reimbursements and incentive payments into one account, the “Kenton County Attorney General Domestic Relations” checking account. He paid all the expenses of the child support program from this account except he allowed the reimbursement for his own salary to accumulate in the account. The sum that had been allowed to accumulate had grown to nearly $1,000,000 by the end of 1993. Elfers withdrew $964,269.95 from the account on December 7, 1993. In January 1994, he deposited that sum and the interest it had earned while in his possession with the Kenton Circuit Court Clerk, and filed a petition seeking a judgment declaring his entitlement to the funds. In addition to these amounts, Elfers also sought a judgment entitling him to $95,273.82 in incentives and $89,684.17 in reimbursements forwarded to the new Kenton County Attorney, Garry Edmondson, for [556]*556services rendered during Elfers’ 1993 contract period.3

On October 4, 1996, Elfers filed a motion for summary judgment. The motion was accompanied by a 64-page memorandum and numerous exhibits in which Elfers outlined the historical background of the IV-D program, the contracts under which he provided services for the Cabinet and other pertinent affidavits. The appellants filed a response to the motion in which they failed to point to any factual discrepancies or inaccuracies in Elfers’ motion. They merely noted their disagreement with Elfers’ “slant” on the facts. They argued that the “determinative historical fact regarding the issue [of entitlement to the checking account] is the 1983 Resolution” enacted by the Kenton County Fiscal Court. The appellants insisted below, as they do in this appeal, that there is a material issue of fact as to the meaning of the phrase “discretionary office expense fund” which was a part of the 1983 Resolution.

In its final judgment, the circuit court described the federal codes, regulations, state statutes and state regulations and the Kenton County Fiscal Court resolution which impact the issue in controversy. The circuit court thoroughly analyzed the legal arguments of the parties and adopted Elfers’ analysis of the issue and determined he was entitled to the funds in the checking account as a matter of law. It concluded: “[Elfers] earned the money in good faith and should be entitled to keep it.”

In this appeal, the appellants make the following arguments: (1) the trial court erred in determining there to be no genuine issue of material fact; (2) the trial court erred in construing the term “office expense” contained in the 1983 fiscal court resolution; and (3) the trial court erred in its application of the doctrine of equitable estoppel to the facts of this case.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
981 S.W.2d 553, 1998 Ky. App. LEXIS 104, 1998 WL 754457, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kenton-county-fiscal-court-v-elfers-kyctapp-1998.