Request By:
Mr. W.D. Kelley, Superintendent
Christian County Public Schools
P.O. Box 609
Hopkinsville, Kentucky 42240
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
As Superintendent of the Christian County Schools you have asked the Office of the Attorney General to respond to several questions regarding the provisions of KRS 161.155, sick leave for teachers. You are concerned with subsection (3) which reads in full as follows:
(3) Days of sick leave not taken by a teacher during any school year shall accumulate without limitation and be credited to that teacher. Accumulated sick leave may be taken in any school year. Any district board of education may, in its discretion, allow teachers in its common school system sick leave in excess of the number of days prescribed in this section. Any accumulated sick leave days, not to exceed thirty (30) days, credited to a teacher shall remain so credited in the event he transfers his place of employment from one school district to another within the state."
Your questions are:
1. Is there a limit of time that can elapse from being employed in school district A, and then being employed in school district B; or put another way will this regulation apply if this teacher has a break in service from one school district to another?
2. If a teacher resigns from a school district and is reemployed, can he maintain the sick leave that he had accumulated?
3. If the answer to question # 2 is yes, what is the length of time a teacher may be out and still retain his sick leave?
In response to your first question we are of the opinion the language in KRS 161.155(3) that "any accumulated sick leave days, not to exceed thirty (30) days, credited to a teacher shall remain so credited in the event he transfers his place of employment from one school district to another within the state" contemplates a continuity of employment from one school district to another. We recently took this position in considering the so-called "portable tenure" provision of KRS 161.740(1)(c). See OAG 78-320, copy attached. The portable tenure provision and the portable sick leave provision are, of course, quite similar and should be construed consistently one with the other.
As for your second and third questions, we believe our response in two previous opinions, OAG 75-587 and OAG 75-697, copies attached, is still appropriate. It is to be recognized that KRS 161.155 was amended in 1976 after these two opinions were written but we are of the opinion that a local board of education continues to have at its reasonable discretion the authority to adopt a uniform policy relative to sick leave which would permit granting to teachers who had resigned with accumulated sick leave and who were subsequently reemployed, part or all of the previously accumulated sick leave, The specifics of such a policy would be up to local board. Thus, the length of time between resignation and reemployment issue is simply for the board to determine.