Request By:
Mr. J. C. Mullins
Corbin City Police Department
Professional Medical Transport, Inc.
1905 South Ky. Street
Corbin, Kentucky 40701
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Walter C. Herdman, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of July 14 concerning a possible conflict of interest in regard to your ambulance service contracting with the city of Corbin for such services. You relate that you are a police officer for the city of Corbin and at the same time an owner of the ambulance service in question which is operated for profit. You are at present contracting with the county to provide the services in question and would like to know whether there is any legal objection to your company contracting with the city of which you are a police officer.
Our response to your question would be in the affirmative. KRS 61.260, pursuant to a 1982 amendment, declares that if any officer of a city of the third class shall be directly or indirectly interested in any contract with the city, or any work done by the city, or in furnishing supplies for the city or its institutions, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. Any appointed officer becoming so interested shall be immediately dismissed by the mayor.
Police officers have been declared to be municipal officers in a number of cases, among them being City of Lexington v. Rennick, 105 Ky. 779, 49 S.W. 787 (1899) and the case of McCloud v. Whitt, Ky. App., 639 S.W.2d 375 (1982).
Since you and other members of the city police force are in fact municipal officers, the execution of a contract in which you and the other members have a direct and pecuniary interest would be an obvious violation of the terms of KRS 61.260.