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O'Connell: Council can raise minimum wage

Sebastian Kitchen

The Louisville Metro Council can raise the minimum wage in Jefferson County for public and private employees without a conflict with state law, according to an opinion from Jefferson County Attorney Mike O'Connell.

"This office is of the opinion that there is no bar under Kentucky law that would prohibit Louisville Metro Government from adopting a minimum wage ordinance," O'Connell wrote in a Monday letter to Councilwoman Attica Scott.

Scott requested an opinion from the office on whether the council could establish a minimum wage. Council members have not introduced a proposed ordinance, but members of the Democratic majority have voiced their support for an increase.

Scott, D-1st, has discussed proposals similar to those pushed in the General Assembly and in Washington that would incrementally increase the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 over three years.

O'Connell wrote that no Kentucky court has preempted local legislation establishing a minimum wage. He wrote that state law gives local jurisdictions significant authority as long as the local regulations do not conflict with state law, which allows for standards more favorable for employees.

"Even though it appears that this area of the law is relatively unsettled, given that no comprehensive scheme of legislation regulating minimum wage at a local government level exists in Kentucky, this office believes that Louisville Metro Government can adopt an ordinance that would establish a minimum wage for all public and private employers and employees operating within the boundaries of Metro," he wrote.

Councilwoman Barbara Shanklin, D-2nd, said the council now has an opinion to move forward.

"We stand on the precipice of transforming the lives of at least 61,000 people in Louisville who can barely make ends meet because they are paid minimum wage," Scott said in a statement.

Scott, Shanklin and Councilman David James, D-6th, are the primary sponsors of a draft ordinance, which they plan to introduce soon, that would gradually raise the minimum wage to $10.10 over several years.

Council President Jim King, D-10th, said he had not seen the letter yet on Monday afternoon but that the "idea has merit" and he would support a gradual increase up to about $10 an hour.

King said he would expect some minimum wage increase to pass, although he said support "all depends on what we're presented with."

In a statement, Mayor Greg Fischer said, "We'll be reviewing the opinion and will be working with the Metro Council and businesses and community leaders to determine if there is common ground that we can reach on the minimum wage."

The Metro Council hosted a hearing on a minimum wage increase in April. Everyone who addressed the council then spoke in favor of the increase, arguing it is moral and would help the economy because low wage workers would immediately spend the money for basic needs.

Scott said after the public hearing that after state lawmakers failed to pass a minimum wage increase this year, and with inaction in Washington, "it's incumbent upon us to take action at the council level."

Republicans did not participate in the public hearing, believing the council did not have the authority to establish a higher minimum wage than that established in state law.

GOP caucus director Stephen Haag said on Monday that the Republicans "are concerned with any ordinance that would make our laws significantly different than those in the counties surrounding us, both in Kentucky and Indiana. With our high tax burden, we're already at an economic disadvantage."

The Republicans are concerned further changes could make it more difficult for employers to add jobs, Haag said.

"We're much more interested in a more uniform minimum wage increase than we would be in a county-by-county basis," Haag said.

Nationally, some states and cities have moved to raise their minimum wages above the federal level. Seattle's city council, for example, recently voted to gradually raise that city's minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The O'Connell opinion says Louisville's minimum wage increase could be enforced through the "administrative complaint process with the Labor Cabinet" or a "judicial cause of action in circuit court by the aggrieved employee." The penalty could also be enforced as a civil offense through fines or as a criminal misdemeanor with the fines outlined in law for that level of crime, which is up to $500 for a class A misdemeanor.



• Kentucky: The House passed a measure in February to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016. It never got a vote in the GOP-led Senate.

• Congress: Democrats want to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 incrementally and then tie it to inflation, but they do not have the votes to overcome a GOP filibuster in the Senate.