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Request By:

Honorable Estill Blair, Judge
Letcher County
Whitesburg, Kentucky 41858

Opinion

Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Martin Glazer, Assistant Attorney General

You state that the county insurance agency has notified the county that the Workmen's Compensation Insurance will not be renewed by the present carrier and that you are required to be placed in the Kentucky Assigned Risk Plan at an increased rate, that under the Assigned Risk Plan, you will be required to pay the premium annually instead of quarterly as previously done. You also state that Letcher County does not have the funds to pay this premium in full. You state that you are the owner of Blair Insurance Agency and that you feel that your agency could write this insurance through Aetna Casualty and Surety Company. You specifically want to know whether it will be a conflict of interest if an agency owned by you should write the insurance for Letcher County considering the difficulty or impossibility of acquiring this insurance otherwise.

Regardless of the reasons deemed necessary by your County of utilizing your agency, it appears that such a procedure would run afoul of KRS 61.210(2) which provides:

"No county judge or county attorney shall, directly or indirectly, receive any benefits or emoluments from, furnish any material or other thing of value to be used in, or be interested in any contract let by the fiscal court for, the construction of any roads, bridges or parts thereof, or any other public or internal improvement."

Further, KRS 61.220 provides:

"(1) Any member of the fiscal court who becomes interested, directly or indirectly, in any contract for work to be done or material to be furnished for the county or any district thereof, or who becomes interested in any claim against the county or state shall be fined not less than five hundred (500) nor more than five thousand ($5,000) for each offense.

"(2) If any county judge or justice is, by the same act, guilty of a violation of this section and KRS 61.210, he shall be punished as provided in KRS 61.210."

While the furnishing of insurance by you to the County would not be for the construction of any roads, bridges or parts thereof, it would be a contract for work to be done for the County. This office has taken the position in OAG 65-126 (a published opinion) that no member of the fiscal court may become interested in any claims against the county or state and that a contract would eventually lead to a claim by a member of the fiscal court.

Therefore, it appears that your proposal would be in violation of the aforesaid statutes, could subject you to a fine, imprisonment and/or forfeiture of office.

LLM Summary
In OAG 77-453, the Attorney General addresses an inquiry from a county judge regarding a potential conflict of interest in writing insurance for the county through an agency owned by the judge. The opinion concludes that such an arrangement would violate Kentucky statutes, specifically KRS 61.210(2) and KRS 61.220, which prohibit county judges from being interested in any contracts for work done for the county. The decision cites OAG 65-126 to support the interpretation of these statutes and the potential legal consequences of violating them.
Disclaimer:
The Sunshine Law Library is not exhaustive and may contain errors from source documents or the import process. Nothing on this website should be taken as legal advice. It is always best to consult with primary sources and appropriate counsel before taking any action.
Type:
Opinion
Lexis Citation:
1977 Ky. AG LEXIS 340
Cites (Untracked):
  • OAG 65-126
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