Can the same person serve as a deputy sheriff in two different Kentucky counties at the same time?

Plain-English summary

The Kentucky Sheriffs' Association asked the Attorney General whether one person can serve as a deputy sheriff in two counties at the same time. The practical reason: some smaller, less populated counties cannot afford a full-time certified deputy on their own, and neighboring sheriffs would like to share the cost of a deputy to put more law enforcement on the ground.

The Attorney General answered yes. The analysis runs through the three ways two offices can be "incompatible" in Kentucky. First, Section 165 of the Kentucky Constitution bars mixing a state office with a county office, and bars holding two municipal offices, but a deputy sheriff is a county office, and Section 165 does not stop someone from holding two county offices. Second, KRS 61.080 makes the office of deputy sheriff incompatible with other listed offices (like jailer or constable), but it does not bar holding the same office (deputy sheriff) in two different counties. Third, common-law "functional" incompatibility applies when one office controls, supervises, or audits the other, and a deputy in one county does none of those things to a deputy in another. The opinion notes the only real conflict would arise if the deputy were on duty for both sheriffs at once, which clear scheduling of two part-time appointments avoids.

What this means for you

County sheriffs

Under the opinion, a sheriff may appoint a deputy who already serves as a deputy in another county. The opinion notes that KRS 70.030(1) lets a sheriff appoint a deputy without geographic residency limits, and that deputies are appointed rather than elected, so the residency rule in Section 100 of the Constitution (which constrains certain elected county officers) does not apply to them.

Deputy sheriffs holding two appointments

The opinion identifies one scenario to avoid: being "on duty" for two sheriffs at the same time, which could produce conflicting orders. It frames the fix as keeping the two part-time work schedules clear enough that there is never a question about which sheriff the deputy is working for at any given moment.

County officials and local-government attorneys

The opinion treats deputy sheriff as a county office (citing Keating v. City of Covington) and explains that two county offices are not automatically incompatible under Section 165. It also walks through the statutory (KRS 61.080) and common-law tests, so it can serve as a reference point when evaluating other dual-office questions.

Common questions

Q: Is a deputy sheriff a "county office" or a "municipal office"? A: The opinion treats it as a county office, citing Keating v. City of Covington, 35 S.W. 1026 (Ky. 1896), which the opinion notes has never been overruled and remains binding.

Q: Doesn't KRS 61.080 make the deputy sheriff job incompatible with other offices? A: It makes deputy sheriff incompatible with other listed offices, such as constable, jailer, or county clerk. The opinion reads it as not barring a person from holding the same office, deputy sheriff, in two different counties.

Q: What is "functional" or common-law incompatibility? A: Under the cases the opinion cites (LaGrange City Council and Webb), two offices are functionally incompatible when one supervises, appoints, removes, or audits the other, or when their duties conflict. The opinion finds none of that between deputies in two separate counties.

Q: Is there any catch?
A: The opinion flags the on-duty conflict: a deputy cannot follow conflicting orders from two sheriffs at the same moment. With two clearly scheduled part-time appointments, it concludes that conflict "should never occur."

Background and statutory framework

Kentucky recognizes three sources of office incompatibility: the Constitution, statutes, and the common law (the opinion cites OAG 21-04 for that framework). Section 165 of the Constitution forbids combining a state office with a county or municipal office and forbids holding two municipal offices, but says nothing barring two county offices. Because the courts have long classified deputy sheriff as a county office (Keating v. City of Covington), Section 165 is not an obstacle. KRS 61.080(2) lists offices that are incompatible with one another but does not address holding one of them twice in different counties. And under the functional-incompatibility cases (Nichols v. Land; LaGrange City Council v. Hall Bros. Co.; Webb v. Carter County Fiscal Court), the key questions are supervision, appointment, removal, and audit, none of which exist between deputies serving separate sheriffs.

Citations and references

Statutes and constitutional provisions:

• Ky. Const. § 165 (incompatible offices)
• Ky. Const. § 100 (residency of certain elected county officers)
• KRS 61.080(2) (statutory incompatibility)
• KRS 70.030(1) (appointment of deputies)

Cases:

• Keating v. City of Covington, 35 S.W. 1026 (Ky. 1896), deputy sheriff is a county office
• Clark Cnty. Att'y v. Thompson, 617 S.W.3d 427 (Ky. App. 2021), office vs. employment
• LaGrange City Council v. Hall Bros. Co. of Oldham Cnty., 3 S.W.3d 765 (Ky. App. 1999), functional incompatibility
• Webb v. Carter Cnty. Fiscal Ct., 165 S.W.3d 490 (Ky. App. 2005)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.ag.ky.gov/Opinions/Pages/default.aspx
• Original PDF: https://www.ag.ky.gov/Resources/Opinions/Opinions/OAG%2025-08.pdf

Original opinion text

The full opinion as issued by the Office of the Kentucky Attorney General:

June 20, 2025
OAG 25-08
Subject: Whether an individual may simultaneously, consistent with Section 165 of the Kentucky Constitution and relevant statutes and precedent on incompatible offices, be a deputy sheriff in two counties. Requested by: John F. Estill, Esq. Counsel for the Kentucky Sheriffs’ Association Written by: Aaron J. Silletto, Executive Director Office of Civil and Environmental Law Syllabus: Kentucky law does not prohibit an individual from holding the office of deputy sheriff in two counties simultaneously. Opinion of the Attorney General The Kentucky Sheriffs’ Association has asked whether Kentucky law allows an individual to serve as a deputy sheriff in more than one county at a time. As explained below, we answer this question in the affirmative. The Association explains that, in some of Kentucky’s less populated counties, a Sheriff may not have the resources to hire a deputy who is a certified law enforcement officer. In other counties, the Sheriff may lack the resources to hire an additional full-time deputy but may be able to fund a portion of the cost of the deputy position. These Sheriffs would like to increase the presence of law enforcement in their communities by sharing these costs with an adjacent county. And so, this is a significant issue for local law enforcement in these communities. “Two offices may be incompatible under the Kentucky Constitution, the Commonwealth’s statutes, or the common law.” OAG 21-04, 2021 WL 1741087, at 1. And so, our analysis begins with Section 165 of the Kentucky Constitution, which provides: No person shall, at the same time, be a State officer or a deputy officer or member of the General Assembly, and an officer of any county, city, town, or other municipality, or an employee thereof; and no person shall, at the same time, fill two municipal offices, either in the same or different municipalities, except as may be otherwise provided in this Constitution. . . . This section of the Constitution proscribes holding certain incompatible offices in two ways: (1) state officers, their deputies, and members of the General Assembly may not also serve as a county or municipal officer or employee; and (2) municipal officers may not hold more than one municipal office at a time, either in the same or different municipalities. Except for the mention of “employee[s]” in its first clause, Section 165 applies only to officers. This is an important distinction because, “as Chief Justice John Marshall noted nearly two hundred years ago, although an office is an employment, it does not follow that every employment is an office.” Clark Cnty. Att’y v. Thompson, 617 S.W.3d 427, 431 (Ky. App. 2021) (quoting U.S. v. Maurice, 26 F. Cas. 1211, 1214 (C.C.D. Va. 1823)) (cleaned up). Further, “the determination of whether a government employee is an officer ‘has to be on a case-by-case basis, depending on the nature and importance of the office in question.’” Id. at 433 (quoting Commonwealth ex rel. Hancock v. Clark, 506 S.W.2d 503, 504 (Ky. 1974)). Since shortly after the adoption of Kentucky’s current (and fourth) constitution, the Commonwealth’s highest court has held that the position of deputy sheriff is a county office. Keating v. City of Covington, 35 S.W. 1026, 1027 (Ky. 1896) (“The office of deputy sheriff . . . is a public county office.”).1 Prior opinions of this Office likewise have held that a deputy sheriff is a county officer. See OAG 78-622, 1978 WL 26177, at 1; OAG 78-361, 1978 WL 26403, at 1; OAG 77-661, 1977 WL 28161, at 2; see also OAG 92-116, 1992 WL 541036, at 1. For purposes of Section 165 of the Constitution, a county office is not a municipal office. Therefore, Section 165 does not prohibit the holding of two county offices at the same time. See OAG 19- 007, 2019 WL 3384048, at 2 (holding that Section 165 does not prohibit concurrent employment in a sheriff’s department and holding another county office); OAG 92- 116, 1992 WL 541036, at 1 (“In our view there is neither statutory nor constitutional incompatibility between the office of deputy sheriff and” another county office). Thus, 1 Though an old decision, Keating has never been overruled by the Supreme Court or its predecessor court and therefore must be followed. SCR 1.040(5); see Thompson, 617 S.W.3d at 433 (“We emphatically reject Thompson’s unsupported argument that ‘dated’ authority somehow is not binding.”). Because Keating remains binding authority from the Commonwealth’s highest court, it is not necessary to consider anew whether the position of deputy sheriff satisfies the “indispensable” elements of a public office. See, e.g., OAG 24-09, 2024 WL 4574804, at 1 (citing Howard v. Saylor, 204 S.W.2d 815, 817 (Ky. 1947)). Section 165 does not preclude an individual from serving as a deputy sheriff in two counties concurrently. But the analysis cannot end there, because even when the Constitution itself does not make two county offices incompatible, they may still be made incompatible by statute. Nichols v. Land, 157 S.W.2d 303, 304 (Ky. 1941). Turning to statutory incompatibility, KRS 61.080 provides, as relevant here, that “[t]he offices of justice of the peace, county judge/executive, surveyor, sheriff, deputy sheriff, coroner, constable, jailer, and clerk or deputy clerk of a court, shall be incompatible, the one (1) with any of the others.” KRS 61.080(2) (emphasis added). Though the statute declares that the office of deputy sheriff is incompatible with any of the “other[ ]” offices listed, it does not prohibit a person from holding the same office in two different counties.2 And so, like Section 165 of the Constitution, KRS 61.080 does not preclude a single person serving as a deputy sheriff concurrently in two counties. Finally, we turn to common law, or functional, incompatibility. Two offices are functionally incompatible when “one office is subordinated to the other” or “the functions of the two are inherently inconsistent or repugnant, or whether the occupancy of both offices is detrimental to the public interest.” LaGrange City Council v. Hall Bros. Co. of Oldham Cnty., 3 S.W.3d 765, 769–70 (Ky. App. 1999) (citations omitted). More specifically, “[t]wo (2) offices or positions are incompatible whenever one has the power of appointment to or removal from the other and whenever there are any potential conflicts of interest between the two (2), such as salary negotiations, supervision and control of duties, and obligations to the public to exercise independent judgment.” Id. at 770; see also Webb v. Carter Cnty. Fiscal Ct., 165 S.W.3d 490, 493 (Ky. App. 2005) (“The doctrine of incompatibility bars an individual from holding both public office and public employment where one position is subordinate to the other or is subject to the audit or review of the other.”). None of the factors identified in LaGrange City Council or Webb apply in the case of a person serving as a deputy sheriff in multiple counties. A deputy sheriff from one county does not supervise or control a deputy sheriff in another county, nor may he or she appoint or remove a deputy sheriff in another county. There are also no salary negotiations or audit responsibilities between deputy sheriffs. Thus, a deputy sheriff office in one county is not functionally incompatible with a deputy sheriff office in another county. 2 Section 100 of the Kentucky Constitution requires the County Attorney, Sheriff, Jailer, Coroner, and Surveyor to reside “in the county . . . in which he is a candidate.” It is therefore not possible for someone to hold these elective county offices in multiple counties at one time. But a deputy sheriff is not elected, and a Sheriff may appoint deputies at his pleasure, without geographic restrictions. See KRS 70.030(1) (“Any law to the contrary notwithstanding, a sheriff may appoint a deputy who resides outside the Commonwealth.”). The only potential conflict between the two offices would arise if the deputy was “on duty” for two county sheriffs at the same time. In the event the two sheriffs gave conflicting orders to the deputy, a conflict would arise insofar as the deputy could not comply with the orders of both sheriffs at the same time. But as the Kentucky Sheriffs’ Association explained in its request, the specific situation under consideration would involve a person receiving two part-time deputy appointments. So long as the deputy’s work schedule was sufficiently clear, such that there was no question of which sheriff the deputy is working for at any given time, this sort of positional conflict between the two deputy appointments should never occur. For these reasons, it is the opinion of the Attorney General that neither Section 165 of the Kentucky Constitution, nor KRS 61.080, nor the common law prohibit an individual from holding the office of deputy sheriff in two counties simultaneously. Russell Coleman Attorney General Aaron J. Silletto, Executive Director Office of Civil and Environmental Law