Request By:
Jerry Kleier
State Representative
37th Legislative District
109 Evangeline
Louisville, Kentucky 40214
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By William S. Riley, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter Mr. Charles Runyan of the Attorney General's Office it is stated the 1978 General Assembly passed House Bill 29, see Kentucky Acts 1978, Chapter 195, which created a new section of Chapter 67 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes. The bill provides that the territory of a county may, as permitted by Section 172A of the Constitution, be divided into service districts by the fiscal court. Each service district shall constitute a separate tax district within which the county government may, upon receipt of a petition signed by a majority of the registered voters in the district as of the last general election, levy and collect taxes in accordance with the kind, type, level, and character of the services provided by the county government in each of the service districts. The governing body of the county government may abolish or alter service districts, but any expansion of the boundaries of a service district shall require a petition signed by a majority of the registered voters, as of the last general election in the new territory to be incorporated.
The question is whether a special service district may petition the fiscal court for a lower tax rate for the reason they are not receiving full county services.
The statute is based upon the second paragraph of Section 172A of the Kentucky Constitution. In that paragraph the General Assembly shall provide for reasonable differences in the rate of ad valorem taxation within different areas of the same taxing districts on that class of property which includes the surface of the land. Those differences shall relate directly to differences between nonrevenue-producing governmental services and benefits giving land urban character which are furnished in one or several areas in contrast to other areas in the taxing district. The implementing statute provides for a petition to be filed by a majority of the voters in the district asking that the taxes be levied and collected in accordance with the kind, type, level and character of the services provided by the county government in every district.
It would appear from an examination of the constitutional provisions and the implementing statute, that where the voters in the district created are not receiving the services provided by the county government they may petition the fiscal court to reduce such rate. However there is no provision for the fiscal court to act in accordance with such petition. It could very well ignore the petition and continue to levy the rate in effect.