Request By:
Hon. Frankie Scott Hager
Owensboro City Attorney
P.O. Box 847
Owensboro, Kentucky 42302
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Walter C. Herdman, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of February 22 in which you relate that the present Parks Director of the city has requested in writing that he be allowed to return to his former position as Public Service Supervisor which is second in command in the Parks Department. He further states that his request is being made for personal reasons. Under the circumstances you raise the following questions:
"Does a second class city under the Civil Service Laws -- KRS 90.300 to 90.410 -- have the authority to reduce an employee in pay and grade upon a written request from an employee that, for personal reasons, he be allowed to return to the job he held immediately prior to his promotion, acknowledging that this will mean a return to his previous pay scale?"
The request by the present Parks Director to be allowed to return to his former position is, as you point out, a demotion. In this respect you particularly refer to KRS 90.360 which provides in effect that no employee shall be dismissed, suspended or reduced in grade or pay for any reason except inefficiency, misconduct, insubordination or violation of law.
There would appear to be little question that the employee's request involves a reduction in grade or pay or in other words a demotion which normally would not be permitted under the terms of KRS 90.360 except for the reasons specified in the statute and pursuant to a hearing. However, we believe that the answer to this question involves the practical interpretation of KRS 90.360 and the apparent purpose for which it was enacted. We believe that its apparent purpose is simply to prohibit a covered employee from being dismissed, suspended or reduced in grade or pay against his will without first affording him due process. In other words, we believe the statute was designed to protect the employee in this instance from being reduced in grade and pay at the will of the Civil Service Commission, or upon trumped up or frivolous charges brought against him, or even charges of alleged substance, without the opportunity to be heard. This, we believe, was the clear intent and purpose of the Legislature, that of protecting the employee's rights under the Civil Service program.
On the other hand, to construe KRS 90.360 as prohibiting the employee from being reduced to a lower grade and pay at his own request, where, of course, a vacancy exists in the lower grade, and provided such request was not made under force or duress, would be a completely unreasonable construction and in fact reach an absurd conclusion. The most prominent rule for the interpretation of a statute is to ascertain the intent and purpose of the Legislature in enacting it.
May v. Clay-Gentry-Graves Tobacco Warehouse Co., 248 Ky. 502, 145 S.W.2d 84 (1940). Statutes must be given a practical construction and not construed so as to lead to an absurd conclusion.
Reeves v. Fidelity & Columbia Trust Co., 293 Ky. 544, 169 S.W.2d 621 (1942).
Under the circumstances and until the court declares otherwise, we would be of the opinion that the employee's request to be allowed to return to his former position which constitutes a reduction in grade and pay, can be approved by the Civil Service Commission without violating the terms of KRS 90.360 .