Request By:
Mr. Wilbur Gibson
Route #1
Brownsville, Kentucky 42210
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of recent date in which you indicate that you are presently serving as a member of the local school board and will shortly announce your candidacy for County Judge/Executive of Edmonson County. You raise the question as to whether or not you could continue to serve as a member of the school board during your candidacy for office and, if elected, up until the time that you are sworn in as County Judge/Executive.
In spite of what you indicate that this office told you on the phone, the answer to your question would be in the negative in view of the specific terms of KRS 160.180(1)(e) and (2), setting forth the disqualification of school board members. Subsection (1)(e) reads as follows:
"(1) No person shall be eligible to membership on a board of education:
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"(e) Who holds or discharges the duties of any civil or political office, deputyship or agency under the city or county of his residence; . . ."
Subsection (2) reads in part as follows:
"(2) If, after the election of any member of the board, he becomes . . . a a candidate for nomination or election to any office . . . the holding and the discharging of the duties of which would render him ineligible before election, . . . he shall be subject to removal from office . . ."
Under the circumstances, therefore, if you become an official candidate for the office of county judge/executive, which is a county office, you disqualify yourself from holding your present position on the local school board.