Request By:
Mr. Charlie Martin
Sheriff Boyle County
Courthouse
Danville, Kentucky
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your legal question relates to a full time deputy sheriff of Boyle County holding a part time job.
One of your full time deputies has a part time job driving a school bus for the Danville Independent School system in the mornings and afternoons.
You ask if there is any statute prohibiting such dual employment?
As deputy sheriff, he is a county officer. As a bus driver, he is an employee of the school board, and at most a state employee.
Under these circumstances we find no constitutional or statutory incompatibility under the provisions of § 165, Kentucky Constitution, and KRS 61.080.
Of course there is a question of whether there exists a practical or common law incompatibility, since it might be physically impossible to perform all of the duties of both positions with care and ability.
In Hermann v. Lampe, 175 Ky. 109, 194 S.W. 122 (1917) 126, the principle of common law incompatibility was stated:
"'Offices are said to be incompatible and inconsistent so as to be executed by the same person: First. When, from the multiplicity of business in them, they cannot be executed with care and ability; or, second, when, their being subordinate and interfering with each other, it induces a presumption that they cannot be executed with impartiality and honesty.'"
However, the factual element of this situation is such that only a court of law would be able to adequately and fully determine whether or not a common law incompatibility exists.