Request By:
Mr. Howard Wilkerson
Route 2
Hickman, Kentucky 42050
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of August 24 in which you indicate that you may seek board membership on the Fulton County Board of Education at the coming fall election. You also relate that you have a brother who is serving as Principal of Fulton County High School. You raise the question as to whether or not a conflict of interest would exist if you were elected to the board and your brother continued to serve as principal.
Our response to your question would be in the negative. KRS 160.180 details the qualifications and disqualifications for school board members, and the only provisions pertaining to your question would be subsection (4), which reads as follows:
"No member of a board of education shall vote regarding the appointment or employment in any capacity of any person related to him as father, mother, brother, sister, husband, wife, son, daughter, nephew, niece, aunt, uncle, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or first cousin, and the majority vote of the remainder of the board is required in case of appointment or employment of such person."
Under the circumstances [if otherwise qualified] you could become a candidate for and serve on the Fulton County Board of Education even though your brother serves as principal in the county school system, however, subsection (4) of KRS 160.180 would prevent you from casting any vote concerning his employment or reemployment. See OAG's 75-416 and 66-258.