Request By:
Honorable Kenneth A. Hager
Meade County Judge/Executive
Court House Complex
Brandenburg, Kentucky 40108
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of September 12 in which you relate that an employee of the county ambulance service has announced that he is a candidate for the office of Property Valuation Administrator, presumably for the unexpired term at the coming November election. You raise the question as to whether or not he must resign from his present position or take a leave of absence and the answer is, neither.
There is no constitutional or statutory requirement that a county employee resign or take a leave of absence while running for public office. A conflict or incompatibility would not exist until such person assumed the second office that is incompatible with the office or employment that he holds at that time. See KRS 61.090.
The position of Property Valuation Administrator is a state office as held in the case of Jefferson County Fiscal Court v. Trager, 302 Ky. 361, 195 S.W.2d 851 (1946). Section 165 of the Constitution and KRS 61.080 prohibit a state officer from holding a county office or county employment at the same time. As a consequence, if and when the county employee in question assumes the office of Property Valuation Administrator, he must resign from his position with the county since the incompatibility becomes effective at that point in time as pointed out above where we cited KRS 61.090.