Request By:
Mr. Charles Branham
c/o Otis Roark
Route 5
Olive Hill, Kentucky 41164
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of recent date in which you raise the question as to whether or not a person employed by the University of Kentucky Extension Specialist Department in its Poultry Division can at the same time become a candidate for and hold the office of district school board member.
Our reponse to your question would be in the affirmative. A person employed by the University of Kentucky is at most a state employe and membership on the local school board would be considered a state office as held in many cases, among them being Runyon v. Commonwealth, Ky., 393 S.W.2d 877 (1965). There is nothing under § 165 of the Constitution or KRS 61.080 that would prohibit an employe of the state from holding a state office at the same time [such as the school board position], and this would be true even if the employe was under the state merit system in view of KRS 18.310(4).
We also might add that even if the employe's salary is partly paid from Federal funds, the Federal Hatch Act authorizes such person to become a candidate in any nonpartisan election, such as a school board election. See 5 USCA, § 1502.