Request By:
Mr. Hugh C. Adams, Jr.
Superintendent
Jessamine County Schools
Nicholasville, Kentucky 40356
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
You have asked the Office of the Attorney General to advise you concerning the options of the Jessamine County Board of Education on special voted building tax proposals. As background to your inquiry you stated the Jessamine County Board of Education has previously caused a tax question to be placed on the ballot under the provisions of KRS 160.477, asking for a tax increase of 16 per $100 of assessed valuation with no limitation on the time the levy would run. Your question is: What would be the legal ramifications if the board of education placed the tax question on the ballot again, under KRS 160.477, and placed in the wording of the question that the tax would only run for a specified number of years?
As we noted in a recent opinion from this office, OAG 78-354, copy attached, the Kentucky Court of Appeals has squarely held that under KRS 160.477 there is "no necessity to fix a time limit on the tax and that the tax could be levied for an unlimited number of years within the discretion of the Board of Education."
Hopson v. Board of Education of Louisville, Ky., 280 S.W.2d 489, 490 (1955). "However, the voters may fix a time limit."
Stagg v. Board of Education of D.I.S. Dist., Ky., 303 S.W.2d 313, 314 (1957), citing
Folks v. Barren County, 313 Ky. 515, 232 S.W.2d 1010 (1950). In the Folks opinion by the Court of Appeals it was said:
"We may, therefore, imply that by its silence on these points the legislature intended that the respective boards of education should be free to exercise a reasonable discretion in having submitted to the people what period of time the tax should be imposed." 232 S.W.2d at 1015.
We believe these case decisions are fully dispositive of your question.