Request By:
Mr. Bert Workum
The Kentucky Post
421 Madison Avenue
Covington, Kentucky 41011
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
Through an associate with the Kentucky Post, Frankfort Bureau, you have asked the Office of the Attorney General for an advisory opinion regarding a potential conflict of interest situation involving a local county school board member who has been named to become a superintendent of schools in an independent school system in the same county. You have asked whether such a situation would create a functional or common law incompatibility of offices. It is the opinion of this office that not only would the holding of a local school board membership and at the same time a superintendency in another school district create a functional incompatibility but would also violate a statutory proscription.
The position of local school superintendent is authorized under KRS 160.350. A local superintendent is a state officer and not an employe of the local board. See Smith v. Board of Education of Ludlow, Ky., 23 F.Supp. 328 (1938). The duties of a superintendent are spelled out in part in KRS 160.370. A superintendent is the executive agent and officer as well as professional adviser to the board of education that hires him or her. And, most importantly, as concerns this opinion, KRS 160.390(2) provides that: "The superintendent shall devote himself exclusively to his duties." Cf. OAG 65-848, copy attached.
As for a local school board member, he or she is part of a "body politic and corporate" responsible for the "management and control" of a school district. KRS 160.160. The general powers and duties of a local school board are spelled out in KRS 160.290. The school laws are saturated with provisions reflecting on a local board's responsibilities. A member of a board of education is also a state officer. Kirwan v. Speckman, Ky., 232 S.W.2d 841 (1950).
The holding of these two state officer positions does not by itself present a statutory or constitutional incompatibility. See KRS 160.180(1)(d), and also KRS 61.080 and Kentucky Constitution § 165. However, we believe the primary statutory prohibition presented by this situation is simply, as noted above, an individual serving as a superintendent of a local school system is to devote himself exclusively to those duties.
We believe further that it should also be clear that one individual could not serve the welfare of two school systems by holding these two positions at the same time. For example, how could this person fairly handle personnel matters (KRS 160.290, 160.380); attendance at board meetings if both boards wanted or needed to meet on the same night (KRS 160.270, 160.290, 160.370); school district non-resident student tuition considerations (KRS 158.120, 158.130); contracting for the furnishing of special education programs for students (KRS 157.280); or participate in a request for the merger of the independent district with the county district (KRS 160.041) to raise only a few areas of actual or potential conflict. There can be no questioning the fact that there would also exist a common-law or functional incompatibility. See Knuckles v. Board of Education of Bell County, 272 Ky. 431, 114 S.W.2d 511 (1938) and OAG 61-292, copy of the latter attached.