Request By:
Honorable Nelson R. Allen
State Senate
507 Bellefonte - Princess Road
Route #5
Ashland, Kentucky 41101
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General
This is in response to your recent letter requesting consideration of KRS 160.180 as amended in 1984 to require that each member of a local board of education complete at least fifteen (15) hours of in-service training annually. This provision is set out in KRS 160.180(5) as follows:
"(5) All local school board members shall complete at least fifteen (15) hours of in-service training annually. The state board of education shall identify the criteria for fulfilling this requirement."
The regulations promulgated by the State Board of Education may be found at 702 KAR 1:115, effective September 11, 1984.
You have asked for advice concerning two questions:
"1. Can a district board of education legally pay the expenses of a member for attending an approved training program?
"2. Since most local board members are either employed or operate their own business, can the local board compensate a member for earnings lost due to attendance at an approved training session? "
We believe the response to your first question is in the affirmative and in the negative to the other.
In support of our conclusion, as to the first question, we refer you to KRS 160.280 which reads at subsection (3) as follows:
"(3) Members of boards of education may be reimbursed for actual and necessary expenditures incurred outside the district in the performance of their duties authorized by the board."
Although KRS 160.280(3) was not referenced in OAG 83-228, copy attached, we take the position that the same considerations applicable to a board of education legally paying the expenses for teachers and administrators to attend professional organizational meetings and professional improvement activities are equally applicable to the school board members themselves. In OAG 83-228, supra, we concluded that local boards of education were permitted to bear the expenses incurred by teachers and administrators who attend, after prior approval by the board, professional activities. We noted that the boards of education had the responsibility to make sure, in exercising their discretion in approving or not attendance at sundry professional activities, whether the expenditure was for an educational purpose as required by Kentucky Constitution sections 180 and 184. Just as the expenses associated with school board members attendance at annual meetings of the National Association of School Boards have for years been paid for with school district funds, with even greater force of reasoning due to the mandatory nature of the fifteen hours of in-service, we believe the actual and necessary expenditures relating to these fifteen hours may be paid for with school funds. It must be cautioned, however, that KRS 160.280(3) requires prior authorization by board action of expenses to be incurred by a school board member.
A negative answer to your second question is required in view of KRS 160.280(1) which forbids school board members from receiving a salary. If a local board of education were to compensate a member for "loss earnings" due to the attendance at a training session, it is believed this payment would be tantamount to the payment of a salary and such payment is therefore forbidden.
We trust the above has been adequately responsive to your inquiry.