Request By:
Robert C. McKinney
Commissioner
Department of Criminal Justice Training
Kit Carson Drive
Richmond, Kentucky 40475-3131
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
This is in reply to your letter raising questions concerning KRS 15.333, an enactment of the 1990 Kentucky General Assembly, and its relationship to KRS 15.410 to KRS 15.510 (Law Enforcement Foundation Program Fund) and KRS 61.300 (Qualifications of a nonelective peace officer or deputy). KRS 15.333 deals with the establishment of an educational program for law enforcement officers relative to HIV and AIDS.
Your first question is as follows:
KRS 15.333 requires the training to be completed annually; what does annually mean?
KRS 15.333(1) states:
The Kentucky Law Enforcement Council shall develop in conjunction with the Cabinet for Human Resources an educational program on human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency virus syndrome of not more than four (4) hours to be delivered by the Department of Criminal Justice Training to all law enforcement officers subject to the provisions of KRS 15.440 or 61.300. The educational program shall be completed annually.
The statute refers to an educational program to be delivered to all law enforcement officers subject to KRS 15.440. The in-service training course for police officers, dealt with in KRS 15.440(5), is to be completed "each calendar year. " The in-service training requirements set forth in 503 KAR 5:090, Section 1(3)(a) provide that all officers are to complete the in-service training requirement "each calendar year. " With the enactment of the above-mentioned regulation by the Justice Cabinet and the enactment of 902 KAR 2:150 by the Cabinet for Human Resources, the educational program required by the statute has apparently been developed. Thus, all police officers to whom the program applies should take the training in question during each calendar year.
Your second question asks whether a person who is subject to the training requirements of KRS 15.333 but fails to meet those requirements is qualified to serve as a nonelective peace officer under KRS 61.300(5).
KRS 61.300, dealing with the qualifications of nonelective peace officers, provides in subsection (5) that such a person must comply with KRS 15.333. The latter statute requires that the training program relative to HIV and AIDS be given to those peace officers subject to the provisions of KRS 61.300.
Thus, nonelective peace officers are required to receive on an annual basis the training program concerning HIV and AIDS. Such instruction is one of the required qualifications of persons holding those positions. If a person does not obtain the required instruction, his employment and peace officer powers are not automatically terminated. The employing entity should be certain that its officers have received the required training, however, as the validity of an arrest may be challenged if the officer does not have the qualifications required of a nonelective peace officer. The employing entity could probably dismiss from the force those officers who failed to obtain the required instruction within the time authorized.
Your next question asks:
Does a police officer subject to the Kentucky Law Enforcement Foundation Program Fund (KLEFPF) laws who fails to meet the training requirement of KRS 15.333 qualify to receive a KLEFPF salary supplement?
The training and instruction program dealt with in KRS 15.333 is required of those law enforcement officers subject to KRS 15.440 which sets forth the requirements that must be met by those cities and police departments participating in the KLEFPF. To retain eligibility, relative to participation in the KLEFPF, a police department's officers must receive the annual training required by KRS 15.333.
Your next question is as follows:
Is the AIDS training requirement of KRS 15.333 incorporated into the training required by KRS 15.440(4) and (5) so that a local unit of government, in order to be eligible to participate in KLEFPF, must require all its police officers, as defined in KRS 15.420(2), to meet the AIDS training requirement?
The answer to your question is "yes." See our answer and response to the preceding question. Those police officers, as the term is defined in KRS 15.420(2), who are participating in the KLEFPF must meet the requirements in KRS 15.440, which include the annual program of instruction set forth in KRS 15.333.
We need not respond to your last question as an answer was requested only if we answered the immediately preceding question in the negative.