Request By:
Mr. Gayle B. Bowen, Director
Division of Local School District Finance
Department of Education
Capital Plaza Tower
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
As the Director of the Division of Local School District Finance in the State Department of Education, you have asked the Office of the Attorney General to consider two questions regarding KRS 157.565. As background to your questions you informed us that the Division of Local School District Finance has the responsibility of certifying the maximum revenue which may be produced by local ad valorem taxes in local school districts. You continued that as an added service you also certify the maximum rate which may be levied. The 1978 General Assembly amended KRS 157.565(1) which enabled school districts to levy an amount not to exceed 10 beginning on July 1, 1978 and a rate not to exceed 15 beginning on July 1, 1979.
You further stated the 1978 amendment has presented the following questions you wish us to resolve:
"(1) A local board of education raised their rate to ten cents ($ .10) after July 1, 1978, under the provision of KRS 157.565. Can the Division of Local School District Finance certify a maximum rate of ten cents ($ .10) in 1979-80 and each year thereafter without further action by the local board of education?
(2) Some local boards of education voted to go to ten cents ($ .10) in 1978-79 and fifteen cents ($ .15) in 1979-80. This action was taken prior to levying the tax in 1978-79. Can the Division of Local School District Finance certify a maximum rate of fifteen cents ($ .15) in 1979-80 and each year thereafter without further action by the local board of education?"
In answer to your first question, it is the opinion of the Office of the Attorney General that the maximum rate of ten cents (.10) for 1979-80 and each year thereafter may be certified by the Division without further action by a local board of education. Due to the newness of the amendment to KRS 157.565(1), there are no other opinions of this office on this matter or other reference aids. We believe there is arguable support for our conclusion from another type of school tax, the special voted school tax under the provision of KRS 160.477. In cases considering this voted school tax the Kentucky Court of Appeals indicated that what was contemplated in the approving of the tax resolution was a "continuing annual levy to meet the purposes for which the increased taxes were authorized." Fendley v. Board of Education of Oldham Co. Sch. Dist., Ky., 240 S.W.2d 837, 839 (1951). See also Hopson v. Board of Educ. of Louisville, Ky., 280 S.W.2d 489 (1955). We are not saying the taxes voted on by the people of a school district under KRS 160.477 are like those levied by a local board under KRS 157.565, but we do fail to see the need for a local board to have to each year take action to levy the ten cents.
As to your second question, we believe the answer may be found in the language of the statute. Under KRS 157.565(1)(b), the order or resolution levying the school tax "shall go into effect not less than thirty (30) days nor more than one hundred and twenty (120) days after its passage." (Emphasis added.) If a school board as part of its resolution in 1978 voted to go to fifteen cents in 1979-80, the resolution would not have gone into effect within the prescribed period of time. Thus, it is our opinion those boards of education which took such action should start anew with the notice of the proposed rate increase and otherwise comply with the procedural steps outlined in the statute.