Request By:
Mr. James L. Brown
Director of Instruction
Montgomery County Board of Education
P.O. Box 7277, Woodford Drive
Mt. Sterling, Kentucky 40353
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
The question you present for our opinion is: Can a board of education legally compensate a certified employee at the end of the school year for unused sick leave?
You state that the Montgomery County Board of Education is presently preparing a plan whereby certified employees will be compensated for unused sick leave at the time of their retirement as provided by KRS 161.155. That statute permits a board of education to adopt a policy of compensating for unused sick leave on the basis of a percentage of the teacher's annual salary not to exceed 30 percent when the teacher retires. The payment for unused sick leave days shall be incorporated into the annual salary of the final year of service.
You also state that a study of school district plans of out-of-state schools has revealed various yearly compensation plans for good attendance or for "being healthy". You want to know if it would be legally permissible for a local board of education to adopt such a plan in Kentucky, which would include compensation at the end of the year for perfect attendance by the teacher -- the use of no days of sick leave. You state that such a program would provide a greater immediate incentive for good attendance by teachers than the compensation-at-retirement plan.
It is our opinion that a plan which provides an annual bonus to teachers who use no sick leave is not legally permissible in Kentucky. The provisions of KRS 161.155 preempt the field of teachers' sick leave and set the limits for local boards on that subject. The statute has evolved to its present state over the years and now provides that a teacher is entitled to 10 days of sick leave during each school year, may accumulate sick leave without limit, may transfer 30 days sick leave from one school district to another and may be compensated for unused sick leave at retirement. It also gives permission for any district board of education, in its discretion, to allow teachers in its common school system sick leave in excess of the number of days prescribed in the statute.
There is no statute authorizing a bonus for unused sick leave and, if the Legislature passed such a statute, we believe it would be unconstitutional as violative of Kentucky Constitution § 3 which provides, inter alia: ". . . no grant of exclusive, separate public emoluments or privileges shall be made to any man or set of men, except in consideration of public services;. . ."
A teacher is compensated for his services and is entitled to use sick leave if there is illness in his family. KRS 161.155. Having paid the teacher his salary, the school district cannot legally give him an additional monetary award. Littleton v. Reed, Ky., 456 S.W.2d 695 (1970).