Oregon Advisory Opinions July 20, 1964: OAG 64-85 (July 20, 1964)

Oregon Attorney General Opinions

1964.

OAG 64-85.

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17

County employes may be entitled to compensation for extraofficial services.

You request an opinion as to the effect of ORS 204.101 and 204.111 on the payment of compensation to county employes who worked during the primary election as members of elections boards and in the operation by the county clerk of a tabulating board "for the public."

ORS 204.101 authorizes the county court to fix the compensation of county employes. ORS 204.111 states that this compensation is "full and exclusive compensation for official services rendered to the county."

If a county employe is appointed to an election board pursuant to ORS 246.310, he is entitled to the compensation provided in ORS 246.330. The payment of compensation on this account does not violate ORS 204.111 because the employe is not being paid for the official services compensated for by his salary, but rather for the services required of him as an election board member. As stated in 62 C.J.S., Municipal Corporations, § 534, p. 981:

"The rule of law forbidding extra compensation to a municipal officer does not extend to payment for services not within the compass of his office, unless it appears that such services were intended to be gratuitous, or unless to permit such payment would be violative of a statute. Thus an officer appointed by the common council to perform an extraofficial service stands in the same position as a stranger and is entitled to payment therefor."

If an employe of the county clerk performs services, not as an election board member, but in furtherance of the duties of the county clerk he is doing no more than performing the official services for which compensation has already been allowed under ORS 204.111.

We express no opinion as to the propriety of the county clerk's operation of a tabulating board "for the public."