Untitled Texas Attorney General Opinion

1 OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS &JSTlN GROVER SELLERS . ATTORNEY GENERAL . Hon. Jean Dey County Attorney Henderson County Athens, Tex8.s Dear Sir: Opinion No. O-7237 Re: Whether school write insurance late& matter quest as follows: “I will information. "First: f the"school-Board ndependent School r.a Junior College c basis of departmental opinions itations that it is contrary to public r'ustee to vrite Insurance as an insurance the school district end consequently e lawfully expended for such purposes. vish to be understood as holding that a 3.3 not recover on such a policy of insurance in case of a loss, If it vere Illegally vrltten by the trustee as agent, because in that case the Insurance ,compeny would be estopped to deny the invalidity of the acts of Its agent. We simply hold that the trustee has no right to make such a contract 135 .. 110% Jcon Day - Sogo 2 with his Board of !i$ustees snd that the Board vould not be authorize~.d to pay the premLun3 on such a policy vrl.ttcn,by the trustee as agent of the Insurance company, We encloce hcre- with our opinions Nos. o-878, 0-2758 and 6-6280 for detailed information. Article 16, Section 40, of our State constitution, reads in part aa follows; “No person shall hold or exercise, at, ihe se.me time,smore than one civil office of emolument, . . 34 Texas Jurisprudence, p. 349, referring to the above conotltut%onal provision, states: . .. “The constitution applies only to offices, of emolument. ~Emolumsnt~ means a pecuniary profit, gain or advsntage; hence the same person may hold two civil offices, where no pay, com- pensation or pecuniary gain attaches to one of them, provided they are not incompatible.” A member of the Board of Trustees of an independent school. district, created under the general. laws does not re- ceive any~co;npensation therefor. Bee Article 2775. you do not state in your letter under what Act the independent school dlstrlct was created nor do you state mAer what Act the Junior College vns created, nor do you state vhether the trustee would receive a&y compensation from either source. Trustees of Junior Collegea croated under Article 281rh, Section 4, receive no compensation, The facts will In all likelihood roveal thnt the trustee will receive no compensation from either the indepgndent school district or the Junior College district. The trusteo would not’ be disqualified unless he received compensation from both of said schools as we can see no Incompatibility i . . Hon. Jeen DFYY - paSo 3 , in the holain:: of both offices at the same time. Very truly your3 ATThNEY CZNE~L OF TEXAS I Wm. J. PetiAz WJF:BT Assistant .,' .