Request By:
Mr. Gary L. Sparks
Patrolman
Kenton County Patrol
5766 Madison Pike, Ky. 17
Independence, Kentucky 41051
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You are a Kenton County Police Officer. In addition, you own a cleaning business in Northern Kentucky. The business is a Kentucky corporation. You are interested in cleaning the Kenton County - Covington City Building and the Kenton County Police Station. The work for both involves sealed bids. You inquire as to any conflict in interest.
Assuming that Kenton County Fiscal Court adopted KRS 45A.345 through 45A.460, and assuming that, as a county police officer, you have no procurement authority for the county, we know of no statutory conflict of interest that would be involved. We see no reason why you, as the corporation, cannot bid on the cleaning of county and city buildings.
You mentioned OAG 80-133. In that opinion we ruled that a member of the City of Murray's Fire Department could not sell fencing material to be used at the city's gas system facility. However, that opinion was written before the enactment of an amendment to KRS 45A.455. KRS 45A.455(1), as amended, reads in part: "It shall be a breach of ethical standards for any employe with procurement authority to participate" etc. (Emphasis added). The 1980 amendment (Ch. 250, § 16, effective April 9, 1980) added the phrase "with procurement authority" to the word "employe." From your letter we assume you have no county procurement authority. See OAG 80-605, to which you also referred.
Since you have nothing to do officialy with the county's business transactions or procurement, the common law principle of conflict of interest, which prohibits a governmental officer from profiting from the county's business activities, does not apply. See Commonwealth v. Witners, 266 Ky. 29, 98 S.W.2d 24 (1936) 25.