Mississippi Advisory Opinions December 18, 1985: 19851218 (December 18, 1985)

Advisory Opinion Text

Mr. Joe W. Martin, Jr.

Jackson County Circuit Clerk

Post Office Box 998

Pascagoula, Mississippi 39567

Dear Mr. Martin:

Attorney General Edwin Lloyd Pittman has received your letter of request and has assigned it to the undersigned for research and response.

In your letter you ask the following:

Several of the people who assist our Election Commission are county employees; both hourly and salaried, i.e., our Circuit Court Bailiffs, some Sheriff's deputies, electricians and plumbers from the county's Maintenance Department, the secretary from our District #4 Supervisor's Office, etc. These people work on the elections both before and after their regular working hours or on days they are scheduled to be off duty. Some of the duties they perform are vaguely similar to their usual jobs; for example the Court Bailiffs “keep the peace” in the Courthouse election night and the Sheriff's deputies use their patrol cars to transport membes of our technical assistance crew to repair voting machines or deliver absentee ballots. Other than some similarity, there is no relationship between the duties they perform for the county as their regular hourly or salaried “jobs” and the vital assistance they render the Election Commission.

We do not believe these necessary election assistants would be willing to aid in the conduct of our elections for no pay or for “comp” time. Surely we are authorized to compensate these people for the time they work in conduct of elections. Should the money used for paying them come from the various budgets; the Sheriff's, the Maintenance Department's etc. or is it your opinion that it properly should come from the amount budgeted by our Board of Supervisor's for the conduct of elections by the Election Commission? Up to this time, their compensation has come from the money budgeted by the Board for conduct of elections.

A county employee may not receive a full salary for his primary county employment and for the same time period receive a salary as an election official. The county sets the salary and may take into consideration additional services which may be rendered on election day in determining compensation or the employee may take a leave of absence from the regular employment and be compensated according to the statutes for election services rendered. Whether or not the county employee is employed as an election officer or assistant is between the employer and employee. If an employee in the course of his regular employment renders additional hours of service during the time that an election is being held the employee may, of course, be paid additional compensation by the employer from the employers funds.

We trust this is responsive to your question. Please let us know if we can be of assistance on another matter.

Sincerely yours,

Edwin Lloyd Pittman, Attorney General.