While many local officials travel to Frankfort to argue against budget cuts affecting their agencies and departments, Fayette County Judge-Executive John Roberts is on a crusade to eliminate his own office - and he brought that case to the House Intergovernmental Affairs Committee Monday.
According to the current occupant, the Fayette County Judge Executive's office operates on a shoestring $21,000 annual budget, has no office phone, and performs only minor duties that could be easily farmed out to the mayor, Urban County Council, and other city officials. Roberts summarizes his typical week as follows: "...basically signing extradition papers and we have three or four meetings of the Fiscal Court, and that's basically it."
Many days Roberts does no work related to the position, which carries a salary of less than $9,000 a year.
Both the Lexington attorney and his predecessor, Jon Larson, campaigned on platforms of eliminating the office, but doing so requires action by the General Assembly and approval of a constitutional amendment by voters.
This year's incarnation, House Bill 198, would only apply to the merged Lexington-Fayette County Government. It sailed through committee and toward the full House with only a few questions about additional costs counties could incur for placing the question on the ballot.
A previous Democratic Fayette County judge-executive, Sandy Varellas, maintained the office performs vital work, including filling county office vacancies and managing the county road budget. Under Roberts' plan, the former dity would land on the mayor's desk and the later would fall to the Urban County Council and city engineers.
