Request By:
Mr. Russell H. Ware
P.O. Box 248
Clay City, Kentucky 40312
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of November 11 in which you, as a member of the Powell County Board of Education, request an opinion as to whether or not it would be legal for a state conservation officer to serve at the same time on the local board of education.
Our response to your question would be in the affirmative. A conservation officer is a state officer by virtue of his appointment under KRS 150.090 and his duties related therein. See OAG 74-909. At the same time a member of the county board of education is also a state officer as held in a number of cases, among them being Runyon v. Commonwealth, Ky., 393 S.W.2d 877 (1965).
There is no constitutional or statutory objection to a person holding two state offices at the same time under § 165 of the Constitution and KRS 61.080. The Supreme Court has also held that an individual can hold two state offices at the same time, unless the two are incompatible in fact under the common law, which means where the duties of both cannot be performed with care and ability, or that one is superior to and controls the other. See Coleman v. Hurst, 226 Ky. 501, 11 S.W.2d 133 (1928); and Polley v. Fortenberry, 268 Ky. 369, 105 S.W.2d 143 (1937).
Under the circumstances, a person could hold office on the county board of education and at the same time serve as state conservation officer, unless, as we mentioned above, a common law conflict of interest existed which is a matter for the courts to determine based on the facts involved.