Kentucky county governments are extensions of the state government that operate at a more localized level.
County governmental operations are carried out by fiscal courts, which, in spite of their names, have no judicial role. Instead, they exercise legislative and executive power, similar to a city council or the general assembly.
County governments have several roles, namely to provide essential public services, including infrastructure, road maintenance, parks, jails and animal control.
Counties also administer elections (note: fiscal courts themselves do not administer elections; that duty falls to county boards of election), keep important records, and collect and allocate tax funding for the aforementioned public services. Other services, such as law enforcement dispatch services, are also administered at the county level.
The central executive of the county fiscal court is called the judge/executive. Legislators are either magistrates or commissioners.
Magistrates are elected based on divided-up county districts, where only members of that district can cast votes for those magisterial candidates. Commissioners, on the other hand, are elected at large, meaning every voter in the county can vote for them, regardless of the district they represent. All three counties in NKY have county commissioners who serve four-year terms.
Commissioners are primarily responsible for passing countywide ordinances (laws) and setting the county budget. Commissioners, like city council members, also serve as representatives for their constituents who advocate for their interests at higher levels of government, such as the general assembly.
In short, a county commissioner is like a liaison between citizens and the county government. You can think of a commissioner as a voting member of a board of directors that runs the county government. The county clerk, jailer, and sheriff are responsible for submitting budgets to the fiscal court, which then votes on whether they’re appropriate.
The commissioner positions are usually not full time, unlike other elected positions at the county level. Thus, fiscal courts often employ full-time county administrators and other administrative staff to handle the day-to-day.
These positions are appointed and lack voting power, but they still wield significant influence over how a county functions. Matthew Webster, Joe Shriver and Matt Elberfeld are the county administrators of Boone, Kenton and Campbell Counties, respectively.
Check out the links below to see who the current county commissioners are for each NKY county:
Haley Parnell contributed reporting to this article.