Request By:
Buddy R. Salyer, Esq.
129 East Main Street
Morehead, Kentucky 40351
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
This is in reply to your letter asking whether Section 165 of the Kentucky Constitution prohibits a university security officer, appointed pursuant to KRS 164.950 to 164.980, from serving, at the same time, as city police officer or a deputy sheriff.
Both Section 165 of the Kentucky Constitution and KRS 61.080(1) provide that no person shall, at the same time, be a state officer and an officer of any county, city or other municipality or an employe thereof. This office has held on numerous occasions, including the opinions cited in your letter, that a city policeman is a city officer and that a sheriff and deputy sheriff are county officers.
KRS 164.950 authorizes the governing board of each public institution of higher learning to appoint safety and security officers. Under KRS 164.955 such safety and security officers shall be peace officers and conservators of the peace. They shall have general police powers, including the power to arrest, without process, all persons who commit within their view any crime or misdemeanor. Generally their powers are confined to the campuses of their respective institutions but KRS 164.955(2) sets forth those situations where their powers may be exercised away from their particular institutions. Generally, the qualifications are similar to those set forth in KRS 61.300 applicable to nonelective peace officers.
These statutes concerning university safety and security officers indicate that they are, in effect, minor officers of the state with the power to arrest and enforce state laws within the confines of the grounds of the institution, although in specific situations set forth in the statutes their jurisdiction may be extended beyond the campus boundaries. They appear to possess to a degree the five basic elements necessary to create a public office as discussed in Commonwealth v. Howard, Ky., 379 S.W.2d 475 (1964) and OAG 72-276, copy enclosed.
Compare the position of a university safety and security officer with that of a state park ranger (OAG 72-276), a state parole officer (OAG 74-24) and a state conservation officer (OAG 74-909). The latter three positions have all been held by this office to be state offices. Copies of the above mentioned opinions are enclosed for your information and consideration.
In our opinion a university safety and security officer appointed and holding his position pursuant to KRS 164.950 to 164.980 is a state officer. As a state officer he is precluded by Section 165 of the Kentucky Constitution and KRS 61.080(1) from serving, at the same time, as either a city officer or a county officer.